BT  21  . F57  1896  copy  1 
Fisher,  George  Park,  1827- 
1909. 

History  of  Christian 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2019  with  funding  from 
Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Library 


https://archive.org/details/historyofchristi00fish_1 


v/ 

INTERNATIONAL  THEOLOGICAL  LIBRARY 


HISTORY 

OF 

CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


BY 

v^>' 

GEORGE  PARK  FISHER,  D.D.,  LL.D. 

TITUS  STREET  PROFESSOR  OF  ECCLESIASTICAL  HISTORY 
IN  YALE  UNIVERSITY 


\ 


’  NEW  YORK 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER’S  SONS 

'  *  i 

1896 


COPYRIGHT,  1896,  BY 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER’S  SONS 


Nortoooti  $«S0 

J.  S.  Cushing  &  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith 
Norwood  Mass.  U.S.A. 


PREFACE 


Several  years  have  elapsed  since  I  engaged  to  prepare  this 
work.  The  unexpected  delay  in  its  publication  is  owing  chiefly 
to  the  pressure  of  other  and  more  imperative  engagements.  One 
reason  for  it,  however,  is  the  fact  that,  although  the  subject  is  one 
which  I  had  long  studied  and  on  which  I  had  given  instruction  to 
many  successive  classes,  more  time  was  required  for  the  compo¬ 
sition  of  the  book  than  I  had  anticipated.  This  is  partly  for  the 
reason  that  it  appeared  to  me,  for  the  present  purpose,  expedient 
to  abandon  for  the  most  part  the  method  which  I  had  always  fol¬ 
lowed  in  my  Lectures  of  arranging  the  matter  under  the  heads  of 
General  and  Special  Doctrinal  History.  On  this  topic  something 
more  is  said  in  the  introductory  chapter.  This  change  of  plan 
has  involved  an  entire  recasting  of  the  materials  to  be  incorpo¬ 
rated  into  this  volume. 

A  number  of  the  ablest  of  the  recent  German  writers  on  Dog- 
mengeschichte  confine  themselves  to  a  description  of  the  rise  and 
establishment  of  dogmas  in  the  official  significance  of  the  term, 
according  to  which  it  denotes  simply  the  accredited  tenets  of  the 
principal  divisions  of  the  Church.  The  terminus  of  this  branch  of 
study  is,  therefore,  set  not  later  than  about  the  opening  of  the 
seventeenth  century.  In  the  present  work,  the  history  of  theolog¬ 
ical  thought  is  carried  forward  through  the  subsequent  essays  at 
doctrinal  construction  down  to  the  present  time.  In  other  words, 
the  present  work  is  a  history  of  Doctrine  as  well  as  of  Dogmas. 
Those  who  hold  that  such  a  treatise  should  have  a  more  restricted 


V 


VI 


PREFACE 


aim  are  at  liberty  to  look  on  the  chapters  which  cover  all  the 
additional  ground,  as  being,  to  use  the  lawyers’  phrase,  obiter 
dicta .  It  is,  after  all,  a  question  of  nomenclature.  A  history  of 
modern  doctrinal  theology,  none  will  deny,  is  a  legitimate  under¬ 
taking. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  how  much,  in  common  with  all 
students  of  Doctrinal  History,  I  owe  to  the  old  masters  in  this 
department,  among  whom  the  names  of  Neander  and  Baur  have 
so  high  a  place.  I  wish  to  add  here  that  not  unfrequently  I  have 
received  aid  from  the  writings  of  my  lamented  friend,  Dr.  Schaff. 
Moller  is  one  of  the  more  recent  authors  on  the  general  history  of 
the  Church  who  has  been  specially  serviceable.  There  are  three 
writers  of  a  late  date  to  whom  particular  acknowledgments  are  due. 
These  are  Harnack,  Loofs,  and  Thomasius.  The  vigorous  and 
brilliant  Dog7nengeschichte  of  Harnack  is  —  whatever  opinion  may 
be  held  as  to  its  theological  tendencies  —  an  indispensable  auxiliary 
in  studies  of  this  nature.  The  numerous  references  in  the  follow¬ 
ing  pages  will  indicate  how  much  I  have  been  stimulated  and 
instructed  by  it.  From  the  Leitfaden  of  Loofs,  written  from  the 
same  general  point  of  view  as  the  volumes  of  Harnack,  I  have 
likewise  derived  important  assistance.  The  Dogmengeschichte  of 
Thomasius,  a  conservative  Lutheran  in  his  creed,  is  acknowledged 
by  scholars  of  all  shades  of  belief  to  be  a  work  of  extraordinary 
merit.  It  has  been  read  and  consulted  by  me  with  no  little 
profit.  In  particular  is  it  of  service  side  by  side  with  the  treatises 
representing  more  or  less  decidedly  the  prevalent  Ritschlian 
school.  I  may  be  permitted  to  add  that  I  deem  the  Ritschlian 
tendency  to  be  justified  so  far  as  it  lays  stress  on  the  faet  that  in 
the  earlier  centuries  the  types  of  Greek  philosophy  then  current 
had  no  inconsiderable  influence  in  the  formulating  of  doctrine. 
This,  to  be  sure,  is  not  a  new  discovery,  but  has  been  widely  rec¬ 
ognized  by  competent  historians,  like  Neander.  Yet  it  may  be 
well  that  a  new  emphasis  should  be  attached  to  it.  Moreover, 


PREFACE 


Vll 


there  is  no  room  for  question  that  the  Reformers  mingled  in  their 
teachings  much  that  was  drawn  from  Scholastic  sources.  All  this 
should  be  conceded  to  the  Ritschlian  movement,  however  large 
the  dissent  may  be  from  specific  conclusions  concerning  the 
extent  and  character  of  the  modifications  of  Christian  doctrine 
from  extrinsic  influences,  concerning  the  real  purport  of  the  New 
Testament  teaching,  and  concerning  the  trustworthiness  of  the 
Gospel  narratives. 

The  special  design  of  this  volume  and  the  limitations  of  space 
have  compelled  the  exclusion  of  a  larger  amount  of  critical  com¬ 
ment  than  its  pages  contain.  The  primary  aim  has  been  to  pre¬ 
sent  in  an  objective  way  and  in  an  impartial  spirit  the  course  of 
theological  thought  respecting  the  religion  of  the  Gospel.  What¬ 
ever  faults  or  defects  may  belong  to  the  work,  the  author  can  say 
with  a  good  conscience  that  nothing  has  been  consciously  inserted 
or  omitted  under  the  impulse  of  personal  bias  or  prejudice.  The 
precept  of  Othello  is  applicable  to  attempts  to  delineate  theolog¬ 
ical  teachers  and  their  systems  : 

“Nothing  extenuate, 

Nor  set  down  aught  in  malice.” 

In  the  revisal  of  the  proof-sheets,  I  am  glad  to  acknowledge  the 
generous  assistance  which  I  have  received  from  Professor  Egbert 
Coffin  Smyth  of  the  Theological  School  at  Andover,  whose  learn¬ 
ing  and  accuracy  eminently  qualify  him  for  such  a  friendly  service. 
I  have  likewise  received  a  number  of  valuable  suggestions  from 
Professor  Arthur  Cushman  McGiffert  of  the  Union  Theological 
School  in  New  York,  who  has  given  in  his  annotated  edition  of 
Eusebius  ample  proof  of  the  thoroughness  of  his  historical  inves¬ 
tigations.  The  index  has  been  compiled  by  Mr.  John  H.  Grant, 
a  member  of  the  Senior  Class  in  the  Yale  Divinity  School. 


, 


. 


CONTENTS 


INTRODUCTION 

Nature  and  Scope  of  the  Subject  —  Theology  Possible  —  Its  Relation  to 
Faith — Its  Relation  to  Philosophy  —  Its  Need  and  Origin  —  Factors 
in  formulating  Christian  Truth  —  Development  in  Theology — Divi¬ 
sions  in  the  History  of  Doctrine  —  Sketch  of  its  Course  —  History  of 
the  History  of  Doctrine  —  The  Literature  of  the  Subject  . 


Part  I 

ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 
PERIOD  I 

The  Rise  and  Early  Types  of  Theology  to  the  Complete  System 
of  Origen  and  to  the  fully  established  Conception  of  the 
Pre-Mundane  Personal  Logos  (c.  a.d.  300). 


CHAPTER  I 

Apostolic  Christianity  —  Palestinian  and  Hellenistic  Judaism  —  Greek 
Philosophy  and  Gentile  Culture  ....... 


CHAPTER  II 


The  Ecclesiastical  Writers 


CHAPTER  III 

Doctrine  in  the  Apostolic  Fathers  ...... 

CHAPTER  IV 

The  Judaic  Separatist  Parties  —  The  Gnostic  Sects  —  Marcion 


PAGE 


23 


34 


4i 


48 


IX 


X 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  V 

The  Beginnings  of  Theology  :  The  Greek  Apologists 


CHAPTER  VI 

The  Rise  of  the  Old  Catholic  Church  —  The  Rule  of  Faith  —  The  Canon 
—  The  Episcopate  —  The  Rise  and  the  Exclusion  of  Montanism 


CHAPTER  VII 

The  Catholic  Doctrine  in  the  Asia  Minor  School :  Irenceus,  Melito  of 
Sardis  —  in  the  North  African  School:  Tertullian — The  Alexandrian 
Christian  Philosophy :  Clement  ....... 


CHAPTER  VIII 

Monarchianism  —  Monarchianism  overcome  in  the  East  —  The  System 
of  Origen — Theology  after  the  Death  of  Origen  —  Novatian  —  Dio¬ 
nysius  of  Alexandria  and  Dionysius  of  Rome  —  Methodius 


PERIOD  II 

The  Development  of  Patristic  Theology  in  the  East  and  in 
the  West. 

In  the  East,  from  a.d.  300  to  the  Death  of  John  of  Damascus 
(c.  754);  in  the  West,  to  Gregory  I.  (c.  a.d.  600). 


CHAPTER  I 

The  Controversy  with  Heathenism  —  The  Danger  of  Division  —  The  Seat 
of  Authority  —  The  Canon,  Scripture  and  Tradition  —  The  Grounds 
of  Theistic  Belief  . . 


CHAPTER  II 

Doctrines  converted  into  Dogmas  —  Church  and  .State  —  The  Great 
Controversies — The  Ecclesiastical  Writers,  East  and  West 


PAGE 

61 


70 


84 


98 


1 17 


125 


CONTENTS 


XI 


CHAPTER  III 

PAGE 

The  Development  of  the  Doctrine  of  the  Trinity  to  the  Council  of  Con¬ 
stantinople  (a.d.  381)  .........  134 


CHAPTER  IV 

The  Development  of  the  Doctrine  of  the  Person  of  Christ  to  John  of 

Damascus . .  .  ,  .148 


CHAPTER  V 

The  Doctrines  not  defined  in  the  (Ecumenical  Councils  .  .  .  161 


CHAPTER  VI 

The  Theological  System  of  Augustine  —  The  Pelagian  Controversy  .  176 

CHAPTER  VII 

Pelagianism  and  the  Theology  of  the  East  on  the  Controverted  Topics 

—  Semi-Pelagianism — Gregory  1 . 194 


Part  II 

MEDIAL  VAL  THEOLOGY 

PERIOD  III 

The  Development  of  Roman  Catholic  Theology  in  the  Middle 
Ages,  and  its  Reduction  to  a  Systematic  Form. 


CHAPTER  I 

From  Gregory  I.  to  Charlemagne — The  Work  of  Mediaeval  Theology 
—  Theology  in  .  the  Eastern  Church  —  Theology  and  Education  in 
the  West  —  John  Scotus  .........  199 


xn 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  II 

PAGE 

From  Charlemagne  to  the  Beginnings  of  Scholasticism — The  Adoption 
Controversy  —  Gottschalk’s  Doctrine  of  Predestination  —  Radbert’s 
Doctrine  of  the  Lord’s  Supper — The  Penitential  System  —  The 
Tenth  Century  —  Controversy  of  Berengarius  and  Lanfranc  on  the 
Lord’s  Supper  ...........  205 


CHAPTER  III 

Characteristics  of  Scholasticism  — The  Scholastic  Maxim —  Philosophy: 
Nominalism  and  Realism  —  Scholasticism  and  the  Universities  — 

The  Method  of  Scholasticism  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .212 

CHAPTER  IV 

Subdivisions  of  the  Scholastic  Era  —  The  First  Section:  Anselm;  Abe¬ 
lard;  Bernard;  the  School  of  St.  Victor  —  The  Books  of  Sentences 
—  Peter  Lombard  ..........  216 


CHAPTER  V 

The  Second  Section  of  the  Scholastic  Era  —  St.  Francis  and  the  Fran¬ 
ciscan  Piety  —  Mysticism  —  Aquinas  and  Scotus  ....  229 


CHAPTER  VI 

The  Scholastic  Doctrines  :  Natural  Theology  and  Christian  Evidences  — 

The  Trinity  and  the  Incarnation  —  Divine  and  Human  Agency  — 
Original  Sin  ...........  234 


CHAPTER  VII 

Scholastic  Doctrines :  The  Atonement  —  Conversion  and  Sanctification 

—  Justification  —  The  Church  and  the  Papacy  .....  245 

CHAPTER  VIII 

Scholastic  Doctrines :  The  Sacraments  .......  254 

CHAPTER  IX 

The  Catharists  —  The  Waldensians  —  The  Mystics  —  Wesel;  Wessel; 
Savonarola  —  The  Doctrines  of  Wyclif — Huss  —  The  Renaissance 
and  its  Influence  —  Erasmus  ........  263 


CONTENTS 


Xlll 


Part  III 

MODERN  THEOLOGY 
PERIOD  IV 

The  Principal  Types  of  Protestant  Theology  —  The  Age  of 
Polemics  —  The  Crystallizing  of  Parties  and  Creeds. 


CHAPTER  I 


The  Theology  of  Luther 


CHAPTER  II 

The  Theology  of  Zwingli  —  The  Eucharistic  Controversy — Parties  in 
the  Lutheran  Church  to  the  Form  of  Concord  (1580) 

CHAPTER  III 

The  Theology  of  Calvin  .  . 

CHAPTER  IV 

Rise  and  Progress  of  Protestant  Theology  in  England  .... 

CHAPTER  V 

Sects  in  the  Wake  of  the  Reformation  —  The  Socinian  System 

CHAPTER  VI 

The  Roman  Catholic  System  restated  in  the  Creed  of  Trent  —  The 
Theology  of  the  Jesuits  ......... 


CHAPTER  VII 

The  Arminian  Revolt  against  Calvinism  —  The  School  of  Saumur  — 
Pajonism — The  Federal  Theology  ....... 

CHAPTER  VIII 

Theology  in  England  in  the  Seventeenth  Century  —  ‘‘Rational  Theol¬ 
ogy  ”  —  The  Latitudinarians  ........ 


PAGE 

269 

285 

298 

310 

317 

326 

337 

353 


XIV 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  IX 

PAGE 

The  Arian  Controversy  in  England  —  The  English  Deistic  School  —  The 
Theology  of  the  Quakers  —  Efforts  on  the  Continent  for  the  Reunion 
of  Churches  .  .  .  .  .  ...  .  .  .  370 


PERIOD  V 

Theology  as  affected  by  Modern  Philosophy  and  Scientific 
Researches. 

From  the  Philosophy  of  Locke  and  Leibnitz  to  the  Present. 


CHAPTER  I 

Philosophy  on  the  Continent  after  Descartes  :  Spinoza;  Leibnitz  —  Phi¬ 
losophy  in  England:  Francis  Bacon;  Locke;  Berkeley;  Hume; 

Reid  —  The  Writings  of  Butler  and  Paley  —  Character  of  English 
Theology  to  the  Middle  of  the  Eighteenth  Century  —  The  Wesleyan 
Theology  . . 381 


CHAPTER  If 

Theology  in  America  in  the  Eighteenth  and  Nineteenth  Centuries  — 
Theology  of  the  First  Settlers  —  Jonathan  Edwards  and  his  School 
(“The  New  England  Theology”) — The  Rise  of  Unitarianism : 
Channing;  Emerson;  Parker  —  The  Rise  of  Universalism  —  New 
Developments  in  the  New  England  School  —  The  Theology  of 
Horace  Bushnell  —  The  Theology  of  Henry  B.  Smith  —  Calvinism  in 
the  Presbyterian  Church;  Charles  Hodge . 394 


CHAPTER  III 

Theology  in  England  in  the  Nineteenth  Century:  The  Evangelical 
School  in  the  Established  Church  —  The  Philosophy  and  the  Theol¬ 
ogy  of  Coleridge  —  The  Early  Oriel  School:  Whateley;  Arnold  — 

The  Oxford  Movement :  Its  Sources  and  Leaders;  its  Principles  and 
Aims;  the  Tracts;  the  Hampden  Controversy;  the  Conversion  of 
Newman;  the  Doctrine  of  the  Eucharist  and  Other  Tenets  of  the 
Oxford  School;  the  Gorham  Case;  Canon  Liddon;  Canon  Gore; 

J.  B.  Mozley’s  Theological  Teaching  .......  446 


CONTENTS 


XV 


CHAPTER  IV 

Theology  in  England  in  the  Nineteenth  Century  ( continued )  :  The 
Broad  Churchman — The  “Essays  and  Reviews ”  —  The  “Broad 
Church  ”  in  Scotland  :  Thomas  Erskine;  McLeod  Campbell  —  Theo¬ 
logical  Opinions  of  Matthew  Arnold — The  Christian  Agnosticism 
of  Hamilton  and  Mansel — Positivism  (Comte) — The  Revival  of 
Hume’s  Philosophy :  J.  S.  Mill  —  The  Agnosticism  of  Herbert 
Spencer — Influence  of  Darwinism  on  Theology  —  Agnostic  Opin¬ 
ions  of  T.  H.  Huxley . 


CHAPTER  V 


Conclusion :  Certain  Theological  Tendencies  in  Recent  Times 


PAGE 


473 


545 


‘ 


. 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


INTRODUCTION 

NATURE  AND  SCOPE  OF  THE  SUBJECT - THEOLOGY  POSSIBLE  —  ITS 

RELATION  TO  FAITH - ITS  RELATION  TO  PHILOSOPHY - ITS  NEED 

AND  ORIGIN - FACTORS  IN  FORMULATING  CHRISTIAN  TRUTH - 

DEVELOPMENT  IN  THEOLOGY - DIVISIONS  IN  THE  HISTORY  OF 

DOCTRINE  —  SKETCH  OF  ITS  COURSE  —  HISTORY  OF  THE  HISTORY 
OF  DOCTRINE  —  THE  LITERATURE  OF  THE  SUBJECT 

Christianity  is  the  revelation  of  God  through  Jesus  Christ 
whereby  reconciliation  and  a  new  spiritual  life  in  fellowship  with 
Himself  are  brought  to  mankind..  The  religion  of  Christ  is  insep¬ 
arable  from  the  life  and  character  of  its  Founder  and  from  his  per¬ 
sonal  relations  to  the  race  and  to  the  community  of  his  followers. 
Herein  Christianity  is  differentiated  from  systems  of  philosophy. 
They  might  remain  unaltered  were  their  authors  forgotten  or  never 
known.  Equally  is  it  contrasted  with  ethnic  religions,  whether 
they  spring  up  in  the  darkness  of  prehistoric  times,  or  are  linked 
to  the  names  of  specific  founders,  real  or  imaginary.  To  under¬ 
take  to  dissever  Christianity  from  Christ  is  to  mistake  its  nature 
and  to  ignore  some  of  its  essential  requirements.  Nevertheless, 
Christianity  is  composed  of  teachings  which  are  to  be  proclaimed, 
and  which  call  for  a  clear  and  connected  interpretation.  Al¬ 
though  not  without  ritual  observances,  it  is  not  a  religion  of 
mystic  ceremonies,  the  meaning  and  effect  of  which  it  is  impossi- 

1  He  appears  in  the  character  of  a  second  head  of  the  race,  the  author  of 
a  new  spiritual  creation.  See  i  Cor.  xv.  45  (“  The  last  Adam  became  a  life- 
giving  Spirit”).  Cf.  Rom.  v.  12  sq.;  also  Eph.  i.  22,  2  Cor.  v.  17  (“a  new 
creature;  the  old  things  are  passed  away”),  Gal.  vi.  15.  See,  also,  John  xv, 
5  (“ye  are  the  branches”). 

B 


I 


2 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


ble  to  state  or  to  understand.  Its  doctrines  do  not  lie  outside 
)  the  limit  of  intelligible  expression.  The  History  of  Christian 
Doctrine  is  the  record  of  the  series  of  attempts  made  in  suc¬ 
cessive  periods  to  embody  the  contents  of  the  Gospel  in  clear 
and  self-consistent  propositions. 

The  History  of  Doctrine  admits  of  a  wider  or  a  more  restricted 
treatment.  It  may  be  the  aim  simply  to  exhibit  the  history  of 
dogmas ;  that  is,  of  the  definitions  of  doctrine  which  have  been 
arrived  at  either  in  the  Church  at  large,  or  in  leading  branches  of  it 
—  definitions  which,  when  once  reached,  were  held  to  be  authori¬ 
tative.  A  dogma  is  a  distinct  conception  and  perspicuous  state¬ 
ment  of  a  doctrine  professed  by  the  body,  or  by  a  considerable 
body,  of  Christian  people.  The  wofd  ‘dogma’  denoted  in  the 
Greek  a  tenet  or  an  ordinance.  <Tt  was  either  a  settled  article  of 
faith  or  a  precept  sent  forth  from  a  recognized  authority.  In  the 
Bible  the  term  is  used  in  the  last  of  these  meanings,  —  that  of  an 
edict  or  enactment^?  Among  the  Stoics  “dogmas”  meant  funda¬ 
mental  truths  which  have  the  character  of  axioms.  Their  title  to 
credence  was.  conceived  to  partake  of  the  sanctity  of  law.  So 
among  the  Christian  Fathers,  “  dogmas  ”  were  not  conceived  of  as 
the  injunctions  of  a  superior,  but  rather  as  verities  which  orthodox 
believers  are  agreed  in  accepting.1 2 

It  is  to  be  borne  in  mind,  then,  that  dogmas  are  not  the  opinions 
of  an  individual  merely,  but  are  the  interpretations  of  Christian¬ 
ity  which  have  been  cast  in  an  explicit  form,  and  have  been 
raised  to  the  rank  of  doctrinal  standards  and  tests.  The  history 
of  dogmas  is  thus  an  account  of  the  process  of  formulating  the 
contents  of  Christianity  in  the  creeds  of  acknowledged  authority. 

By  a  number  of  recent  writers,  of  whom  one  of  the  ablest  and 
most  conspicuous  is  Dr.  A.  Harnack,  the  function  of  the  history 
of  doctrine  is  confined  to  the  description  of  the  genesis  and  de¬ 
velopment  of  “  dogmas.”  The  plan  of  Harnack’s  doctrinal  history 
is  conformed  to  this  conception  of  the  subject.  The  dogmatic 
interpretation  of  Christianity,  the  author  justly  considers,  was  at 

1  In  the  Sept.,  Dan.  ii.  13  (“  decree  ”  of  Nebuchadnezzar),  vi.  9  (interdict 
of  Darius),  Esther  iii.  9,  Luke  ii.  1  (“  decree  ”  of  Augustus),  Acts  xvi.  4  (“  de¬ 
crees  ”  of  the  apostles  and  elders),  Eph.  ii.  15,  Col.  ii.  14  (ordinances  of  O. T. 
law). 

2  On  the  history  of  the  use  of  the  word  ‘  dogma,’  see  K.  I.  Nitzsch,  DGM., 
p.  52;  F.  Nitzsch,  DG.,  p.  1. 


INTRODUCTION 


3 


first,  and  to  a  great  extent,  a  product  of  Greek  thought,  work¬ 
ing  from  the  points  of  view  and  in  the  spirit  peculiar  to  the 
Hellenic  mind.  The  outcome  of  this  process  of  thought,  which 
was  carried  forward  through  several  centuries  of  controversy, 
appears  in  the  oecumenical  creeds  pertaining  to  the  Incarnation 
and  the  Trinity.  Through  Augustine,  the  system  underwent  an 
essential  modification.  There  came  in  a  practically  new  element, 
which  stamped  upon  the  theology  of  the  West  its  distinctive  char¬ 
acter.  In  Augustine  the  old  and  the  new,  the  Greek  and  the 
Latin  elements,  stand  in  juxtaposition.  Later  through  Luther  the 
Pauline  type  of  teaching  became  a  more  determining  factor  in 
dogmatic  construction.  Through  the  great  Reformer  there  was 
achieved  an  inchoate,  incomplete  re-formulating  of  that  dogmatic 
system  which  had  assumed  a  definite  form  in  the  Middle  Ages. 
The  result  of  the  Protestant  movement  in  the  dogmatic  field  was 
threefold  :  the  Lutheran  theology,  Socinianism,  and  the  restate¬ 
ment  of  the  Roman  Catholic  system  at  the  Council  of  Trent,  — 
this  last  system  being  amplified  in  recent  days,  especially  through 
the  Vatican  Council.1 

But  it  has  been  the  custom  of  former  writers  to  give  a  broader 
scope  to  the  History  of  Doctrine.  It  may  undertake  to  trace  the 
history  of  theology,  not  only  so  far  as  theological  inquiry  and  dis¬ 
cussion  have  issued  in  articles  of  faith,  but  likewise  so  far  as  move¬ 
ments  of  religious  thought  are  of  signal  interest,  and  are  often  not 
unlikely  to  influence  sooner  or  later  the  moulding  of  the  Christian 
creed.  The  present  volume  will  include  a  survey,  as  full  as  is 
practicable  within  the  space  at  command,  of  the  course  of  modern 
theology  down  to  the  present  day. 

How  shall  we  state  concisely  the  essential  truth  in  Christianity, 
—  that  truth  which  Christian  theology  seeks  to  explicate?  Light 
is  thrown  on  this  question  by  the  response  of  Jesus  to  the  declara¬ 
tion  of  Peter  :  “  Thou  art  Christ,  the  son  of  the  living  God.”  “On 
this  rock,”  said  Jesus,  —  meaning  by  the  “rock,”  if  not  this  avowal 
of  Peter,  the  Apostle  himself  in  the  character  of  a  leader  in  the 
confession  and  promulgation  of  the  faith,  —  “I  will  build  my 
church.” 2  This  living  conviction  of  Peter,  it  is  added,  was 
inspired  from  above.  Identical  in  substance  with  this  passage 

1  See  Harnack,  Lehrb.  d.  DG.  (2  ed.),  I.  1-10;  Abriss  d.  DG.  (2  ed.) 
PP-  i-5>  P-  334  sq. 

2  Matt.  xvi.  16-18.  (Cf.  John  iv.  42.) 


4 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


are  the  words  of  the  Apostle  Paul:  “No  man  can  say  Jesus  is 
‘Lord’  but  in  the  Holy  Spirit.”1  In  that  title  Jesus  is  recog¬ 
nized  as  the  predicted  Messenger  of  God  and  the  head  of  the 
kingdom.  By  way  of  protest  against  the  denial  of  the  true  human 
nature  and  experiences  of  the  Christ  the  Apostle  John  propounds 
the  test:  “Every  spirit  which  confesseth  that  Jesus  Christ  is 
come  in  the  flesh  is  of  God.”  13  In  the  New  Testament  it  is  con¬ 
stantly  assumed  where  it  is  not  expressly  affirmed,  that  mankind 
in  character  are  alienated  from  God,  and  that  Christ  is  the  Deliv¬ 
erer  through  whom  reconciliation  is  made  and  a  filial  relation 
reestablished.  The  substance  of  Christianity  is  expressed  in  the 
word  ‘Redemption,’  with  its  postulates  and  results.3 

Is  theology  possible  ?  (fs  the  human  mind  capable  of  forming 
accurate  conceptions  and  expressions  of  religious  truth?  If  not, 
then  the  History  of  Doctrine  is  nothing  more  than  a  register  of 
incessant,  but  forever  abortive,  experiments.,/  A  denial  of  the  possi¬ 
bility  of  theology  is  heard  from  the  various  schools  of  Agnosticism. 
Comte,  the  founder  of  the  Positivist  system,  who  is  not  counted 
technically  among  the  Agnostics,  denies  that  we  have  any  evidence 
of  the  reality  of  either  efficient  or  final  causes.  All  science  dwin¬ 
dles  to  a  record  of  bare  phenomena,  arranged  by  their  sequence 
in  time  and  their  likeness  or  unlikeness.  Of  course  theology  is 
expunged  from  the  list  of  sciences  and  degraded  to  a  level  with 
astrology.  Herbert  Spencer,  affirming  the  reality  of  an  absolute 
“Power”  at  the  root  of  all  phenomena,  yet  asserts  that  it  is  utterly 
inscrutable.  It  is,  but  is  an  “Unknowable.”  This  one  step  Mr. 
Spencer  takes  in  advance  of  the  position  of  Comte.  There  is, 
moreover,  a  theistic  and  Christian  class  of  Agnostics,  who,  while 
they  do  go  farther  than  barely  to  admit  the  existence  of  the 
object-matter  of  theology,  still  banish  it  beyond  the  purview  of 
conceptive  thought.  We  may  not  knoiv,  although  we  are  war¬ 
ranted  in  believing.  Kant  set  out  to  confute  the  skepticism  of 
Hume,  but  Kant,  in  the  theoretical  part  of  his  philosophy,  so  far 
as  the  point  in  question  is  concerned,  really  organized  skepticism. 
He  substituted  for  custom  or  imagination  as  the  source  of  mental 
intuitions  nothing  but  a  purely  subjective  necessity  and  univer¬ 
sality.  Sir  William  Hamilton  followed  in  the  path  of  Kant  so  far 
as  to  pronounce  our  religious  beliefs  —  our  belief  in  God  and 

1  i  Cor.  xii.  3.  2  1  John  iv.  2. 

3  John  i.  12,  I  John  iii.  I,  2  Cor.  v.  19,  Gal.  iii.  26,  Rom.  viii.  15-17,  etc. 


INTRODUCTION 


5 


freedom,  for  example  —  to  be  a  choice  between  inconceivables 
which  exclude  one  another,  —  this  choice  finding  a  warrant  in 
moral  grounds  alone.  Hamilton’s  theory  was  carried  out  in  a 
philosophy  of  religion  by  Mansel  in  his  “  Limits  of  Religious 
Thought.”  ‘Faith  without  science’  is  the  watchword  of  this  phi¬ 
losophy.  The  contention  is  that  all  our  notions  of  the  infinite  and 
of  God,  being  relative,  are  merely  approximate.  They  will  not 
answer,  therefore,  as  a  basis  for  reasoning.  They  constitute  no 
materials  for  science,  strictly  so-called.  The  prop  on  which  Ag¬ 
nostics  lean  is  the  assumed  relativity  of  human  knowledge.  Our 
knowledge,  it  is  alleged,  is  solely  of  phenomena,  of  things  as  they 
appear  to  us.  It  is  only  symbols,  realities  transformed  into  some¬ 
thing  differe.uU  from  what  they  are,  that  the  human  mind  can 
discern,  /vgnf  phenomena  are  not  masks ;  they  are  revelations 
of  reality,  and  to  know  is  not  to  transmute  or  to  create.  There 
are  bounds  to  the  knowledge  possible  to  finite  intelligence.  Em¬ 
phatically  is  this  true  as  concerns  the  spiritual  world.  But  this 
circumstance  does  not  justify  the  casting  of  discredit  upon  the 
knowledge  of  which  we  are  possessed.  It  affords  no  reason  for 
affixing  to  it  the  stamp  of  unreality. 

It  has  sometimes  been  contended  that  theology  can  never  be  a 
science,  on  account  of  the  infirmities  of  language.  These  are  said 
to  preclude  exact  expression.  This  view  was  propounded  by  an 
eminent  American  preacher  and  author,  Horace  Bushnell.1  It  is 
an  inference  drawn  from  the  material  origin  of  language,  by  which 
a  merely  symbolical  character  is  given  to  all  words  denoting  spirit¬ 
ual  things.  They  are  attempts  to  picture  things  invisible.  They 
are  in  their  very  nature  figurative  —  a  “fossil  poetry.”  Under¬ 
neath  this  opinion  there  really  lies  the  contention  of  Occam,  the 
Nominalist  leader  in  the  latter  part  of  the  Middle  Ages,  by  whom 
theological  nescience  was  inferred  from  a  denial  to  man  of  the  con- 
ceptive  faculty.  If  the  objection  were  sound,  it  would  be  equally 
valid,  for  example,  against  ethics  and  political  science.  Intellectual 
notions  “are  at  the  foundation  of  all  science.”  It  is  no  doubt 
an  important  truth  that  words  which  signify  spiritual  states  that 
involve  feeling  —  since  feeling  so  varies  in  depth  and  warmth  — 
mean  different  things  to  different  persons.2  The  impressions 

1  God  in  Christ  (1849),  Preliminary  Essay:  Christ  in  Theology  (1851). 

2  This  fact  is  instructively  dwelt  upon  by  Cardinal  Newman,  University 
Sermons ,  pp.  114,  1 1 5,  and  in  his  Grammar  of  Assent.  The  difference  be- 


6 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


excited  in  different  minds  by  the  words  that  denote  virtues  and 
vices,  and  by  epithets  of  praise  and  blame,  differ  exceedingly. 
This  difference  affects  the  force  of  probable  reasoning.  But,  apart 
from  the  emotions  that  are  stirred,  it  is  enough  to  say  with  J.  S. 
Mill  as  to  abstractions  in  general,  that  “  in  some  cases  it  is  not 
easy  to  decide  precisely  how  much  a  particular  word  does  or  does 
not  connote.”  1 

What  is  the  relation  of  theology  to  that  faith  which,  as  it  is 
the  first  demand  of  the  Gospel,  is  the  initial  element  in  Chris¬ 
tian  experience?  Discussions  concerning  the  relation  of  faith  to 
knowledge  we  shall  meet  with  at  every  period  in  the  History  of 
Doctrine.2  First,  knowledge  is  not  a  stage  above  that  of  faith,  as 
if  faith  were  a  ladder  to  be  dropped  when  once  the  ascent  by  it  is 
made.  This  idea  of  the  provisional  function  of  faith  is  suggested 
by  Clement  of  Alexandria,  yet  is  not  by  him  consistently  adhered 
to.3  His  partial  error  is  the  result  of  a  failure  to  grasp  firmly  the 
Pauline  idea  of  faith.  Faith  is  made  by  Clement  the  precursor  of 
knowledge.  It  is  the  path  to  that  love  and  holiness  which  qualify 
us  to  know  divine  things.4  It  follows  from  this  conception  that 
there  is  an  esoteric  Christianity.  There  is  a  higher  plane  than 
that  which  the  ordinary  believer  attains  to.  But  faith,  we  are 
taught  by  the  Apostle,  merges  at  last,  not  in  science,  but  in  sight. 
Faith  “  abides  ”  until  beyond  the  veil  it  is  resolved  into  vision.5 

Secondly,  there  is  another  view  which  recognizes  that  faith  has 
roots  of  its  own,  yet  holds  that  scientific  knowledge  may  become, 
and  is  destined  to  become,  coextensive  with  it.  That  which  faith, 
impelled  by  the  moral  nature  embraces,  theology  demonstrates. 
This  is  the  Scholastic  theory.  It  is  traceable  to  Augustine,  and  is 
propounded  by  Anselm.  Stress  is  laid,  however,  on  the  influence 
of  faith  in  clarifying  the  intellect  and  thus  empowering  it  to  do  its 
work.  Later,  in  the  thirteenth  century,  the  inability  of  reason  to 

tween  knowing  certain  truths  and  knowing  them  as  they  exist  in  another 
individual’s  mind,  is  illustrated  by  J.  B.  Mozley,  Miracles,  p.  xxviii. 

1  Logic,  I.  ii.  §  5. 

2  See  an  excellent  essay,  “  Gedanken  fiber  Glauben  u.  Wissen,”  in  Julius 
Mfiller’s  Dogmatisch.  Abhandll.,  pp.  1-42. 

3  Cf.  Neander’s  exposition  of  Clement,  Ch.  Hist.  (Torry’s  transk),  I.  529- 
541- 

4  “  In  Clement’s  view  the  supreme  End  of  all  is  not  Love,  but  Knowledge.” 
Bigg’s  The  Christian  Platonists  of  Alexandria,  p.  88. 

5  1  Cor.  xiii.  12,  13. 


INTRODUCTION 


7 


do  more  than  partially  to  fulfil  its  task  was  more  explicitly  asserted. 
The  goal  is  approached,  but  it  is  never  reached.  But  according 
to  both  Anselm  and  Aquinas,  as  fast  as  science  advances  faith  is 
displaced.  From  a  point  of  view  in  general  quite  different  from 
that  of  the  Scholastic  theologians,  Lessing,  herein  the  spokesman  of 
a  type  of  modern  Rationalism,  regards  faith  as  a  temporary  leaning 
upon  authority  up  to  the  time  when  reason  is  so  far  developed  as  to 
be  able  to  cast  aside  this  crutch.  Hegel  comes  to  the  same  result 
in  making  faith  an  unscientific  apprehension  of  that  truth  which 
the  philosopher  evolves  in  its  pure  form  without  help  from  abroad. 
The  orthodox  creed  is  construed  as  a  popular  version  of  the 
Hegelian  metaphysic. 

The  true  view  is  that  the  faith  of  the  Christian  disciple  is  not] 
the  product  of  science,  but  science  is  the  intellectual  apprehension 
of  its  contents.  Faith,  to  be  sure,  includes  a  perception  of  truth. 
It  presupposes  ideas,  in  particular  the  idea  of  God  and  that  of 
moral  freedom  and  responsibility.  Its  object  is  Christ,  the  per¬ 
sonal  Saviour,  coming  to  minister  to  the  needs  of  the  spirit,  dying, 
rising  from  the  dead,  reigning,  but  not  forsaking  his  disciples.  In 
this  faith,  as  a  practical  experience,  are  the  materials  of  theology. 
It  is  to  be  observed,  however,  that  faith  is  not  here  taken  as  in 
the  vocabulary  of  the  Church  of  Rome,  where  its  object  is  made 
to  comprehend  the  entire  body  of  ecclesiastical  teaching,  which  is 
to  be  accepted  on  the  ground  of  authority. 

What  is  the  relation  of  Theology  to  Philosophy?  For  the 
reason  that  their  problems  are  to  a  considerable  extent  the  same, 
the  point  of  difference  between  them  is  to  be  carefully  observed. 
Christianity  is  an  historical  religion.  At  the  foundation  of  Chris¬ 
tian  theology  are  facts  which  occur  within  the  sphere  of  freedom, 
and  therefore  do  not  admit  of  being  explained  upon  any  theory 
of  necessary  evolution.  As  students  of  the  Gospel  we  are  in  a 
province  where  the  agency  of  personal  beings  is  the  principal 
matter.  It  was  the  love  of  God  to  mankind  that  led  to  the  mis¬ 
sion  of  Christ.  It  was  a  free  act  of  love,  the  bestowal  of  an 
“  unspeakable  gift.”  The  method  of  salvation  is  a  course  of  self- 
sacrifice  which  culminates  in  the  cross.  These  things  cannot  be 
made  links  in  a  metaphysical  chain.  They  are  not  so  many  steps 
on  a  logical  treadmill.  Their  analogue  is  to  be  found  in  the 
purest  deeds  of  love,  patience,  and  self-devotion  which  the  annals 
of  humanity  contain.  Nevertheless,  the  facts  of  Christianity  are 


8  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 

not  barren  occurrences.  They  are  capable  of  an  explanation. 
They  are  not  without  a  significance.  They  are  in  fulfilment  of  a 
purpose.  Their  fitness  to  the  end  sought,  theology  with  the  aid 
of  Scripture  seeks  to  point  out.  But  philosophy  has  another  start¬ 
ing-point.  It  begins  with  the  data  of  consciousness  and  builds  its 
structure  by  a  process  in  which  historical  events  have  no  place. 

That  there  is  room  for  a  science  of  Christian  theology  is  evident 
for  a  threefold  reason.  In  the  first  place,  Christianity  is  set  forth 
in  the  Scriptures  in  a  popular,  as  distinguished  from  a  literal  and 
methodical  style  of  teaching.  We  meet  there  not  the  precise 
phraseology  of  the  schools,  but  the  language  of  common  life. 
The  Gospel  was  addressed  principally  to  plain  people.  The 
Apostles,  with  a  single  exception,  were  not  educated  men  in 
the  ordinary  sense  of  the  term.  It  was  for  this  reason  that  the 
impressiveness  with  which  they  spoke  astonished  cultivated  hear¬ 
ers.1  The  training  of  the  Apostle  Paul  himself  was  not  acquired 
from  Greek  masters.  He  was  a  student  not  of  Aristotle,  but  of 
Gamaliel.  His  education  was  in  the  lore  and  by  the  methods  of 
Rabbinical  teachers,  although  in  his  case  indeed  there  was  mingled 
a  degree  of  influence  from  personal  contact  with  Gentile  debates 
and  speculation. 

In  the  second  place,  the  appeal  of  Christianity  was  immediately 
to  the  moral  and  spiritual  nature.  It  did  not  aspire  to  rival  the 
Greeks,  the  seekers  of  “  wisdom,” 2  on  their  own  field.  The 
awakening  of  conscience,  the  new  life  of  faith,  the  uplifting 
hopes  kindled  by  the  Gospel,  are,  to  be  sure,  not  inwrought  as 
by  a  magical  spell.  They  imply  perceptions  of  truth.  Yet  they 
are  distinctively  experiences  of  the  heart.  Converts  embraced  the 
Gospel  from  practical  motives  and  in  a  practical  spirit.  It  was  the 
question,  “What  shall  I  do  to  be  saved,"  to  which  an  answer  was 
craved  and  rendered.  In  the  third  place,  there  is  a  diversity,  — 
not  a  contradiction,  —  but  a  diversity  in  the  ways  in  which  the 
Apostles  themselves  conceive  of  the  Gospel.  For  example,  there 
is  a  Pauline  type  of  doctrine,  and  a  Johannine  type  of  doctrine,  an 
Epistle  of  James  as  well  as  an  Epistle  to  the  Romans.  There  are 
points  of  variety  as  well  as  of  identity,  between  these  various  repre¬ 
sentations  of  the  Christian  revelation.  It  was  looked  at  from  differ¬ 
ent  points  of  view.  The  foregoing  remarks  may  suffice  to  show  that 
an  open  space  was  left  for  the  researches  and  generalizations  of 

1  Acts  iv.  13  ;  cf.  John  vii.  15. 


2  I  Cor.  i.  22. 


INTRODUCTION 


9 


theology.  They  may  serve,  also,  to  make  it  clear  how  theology, 
or  the  understanding  of  the  Christian  Revelation,  may  be  pro¬ 
gressive,  and  yet  that  Revelation  itself  not  be  defective  or  faulty. 

The  incentives  to  a  search  for  exact  and  coherent  conceptions 
of  Christian  truth  are  not  far  to  seek.  We  are  made  to  think  as 
well  as  to  feel  and  to  act.  The  yearning  for  knowledge,  innate  in 
the  human  mind,  could  not  fail  to  be  stimulated  by  the  teaching  of 
the  Gospel  and  the  reception  of  it.  Inquiries  would  spring  up 
unbidden.  Problems  would  suggest  themselves  that  would  press 
for  a  solution.  Apart  from  these  inducements,  opinions  clashing 
with  Apostolic  teachings  and  with  Christian  experience  would  arise 
and  create  a  need  for  definitions  of  the  truth.  Theology  arose  in  ^ 
the  Church  as  a  means  of  self-defence.  In  resisting  assailants,  lines 
of  circumvallation  are  required.  These  must  be  related  to  the 
positions  taken  by  the  attacking  force.  When,  for  example,  it 
was  asserted,  on  the  one  hand,  that  compliance  with  the  ritual 
law  of  the  Old  Testament  is  indispensable,  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  that  the  entire  Old  Testament  system  is  alien  to  the  Gos¬ 
pel,  the  true  relation  of  the  Old  to  the  New,  of  Judaism  to  Chris¬ 
tianity,  must  needs  be  defined.  Other  illustrations  are  needless. 
Along  the  whole  course  of  Church  History  —  in  a  marked  way, 
in  the  early  period  —  the  menace  contained  in  erratic  speculation 
has  been  a  spur  to  theological  thought  and  the  precursor  of  dog¬ 
matic  definitions. 

Doctrinal  history  includes  the  history  of  heresies.  Heresy 
denotes  an  opinion  antagonistic  to  a  fundamental  article  of  the 
Christian  faith.  When  Christianity  is  brought  into  contact  with 
modes  of  thought  and  tenets  originating  elsewhere,  either  of  two 
effects  may  follow.  It  may  assimilate  them,  discarding  whatever 
is  at  variance  with  the  Gospel,  or  the  tables  may  be  turned  and 
the  foreign  elements  may  prevail.  In  the  latter  case  there  ensues 
a  perversion  of  Christianity,  an  amalgamation  with  it  of  ideas  dis¬ 
cordant  with  its  nature.  The  product  is  then  a  heresy.1  But  to 
fill  out  the  conception,  it  seems  necessary  that  error  should  be 
aggressive  and  should  give  rise  to  an  effort  to  build  up  a  party 
and  thus  to  divide  the  Church.  In  the  Apostles’  use  of  the  term 
‘  heresy  ’  contains  a  factious  element.2  A  heretic  was  likewise  a 
schismatic.  The  word  ‘sect’  —  from  the  root  of  sequt — means 

1  Cf.  Rothe,  Anfdnge  d.  Christl.  Kirche,  p.  333. 

2  1  Cor.  xi.  18,  19  ;  Gal.  v.  20. 


IO 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


etymologically  the  ‘  following/  or  clientele ,  of  a  leader,  —  not  a  frac¬ 
tion  broken  off,  as  it  is  sometimes  thought  to  signify  (as  if  it  were 
from  the  root  of  secare) .  The  word  ‘  heresy  ’  meant  originally 
4  choice  ’ ;  then  an  opinion  that  is  the  product  of  choice  or  of  the 
will,  instead  of  being  drawn  from  the  divine  Word.  It  is  a  man¬ 
made  opinion.  Hence  the  term  was  given  as  a  name  to  depart¬ 
ures  from  orthodox  teaching  which  carried  in  them  a  breach  of 
church  unity.  ‘  Heresy  ’  is  to  be  distinguished  from  defective 
stages  of  Christian  knowledge.  For  example,  the  Jewish  believers, 
including  the  Apostles  themselves,  at  the  outset  required  the  Gen¬ 
tile  believers  to  be  circumcised.  They  were  not  on  this  account 
chargeable  with  ‘ heresy.’  Additional  light  must  first  come  in  and 
be  rejected,  before  that  earlier  opinion  could  be  thus  stigmatized. 
Moreover,  heresies  are  not  to  be  confounded  with  tentative  and 
faulty  hypotheses  broached  in  a  period  prior  to  the  scrutiny  of  a 
topic  of  Christian  doctrine,  and  before  that  scrutiny  has  led  the 
general  mind  to  an  assured  conclusion.  Such  hypotheses — for 
example,  the  idea  that  in  the  person  of  Christ  the  Logos  is  substi¬ 
tuted  for  a  rational  human  spirit  —  are  to  be  met  with  in  certain 
early  Fathers.  Attention  to  what  are  called  heresies  fills  a  consid¬ 
erable  space  in  Doctrinal  History.  This  is  because  they  are  in 
themselves  interesting,  and  especially  because  of  their  indirect 
agency  in  the  origination  of  finally  accepted  beliefs.  It  is  a  sub¬ 
ject  which  is  handled  more  fairly  and  dispassionately  than  was 
formerly  the  case,  when  the  prominent  heresiarchs  were  often  held 
up  to  execration.  At  present  it  is  more  clear  that  moral  depravity 
is  not  of  course  the  concomitant  of  intellectual  error. 

From  age  to  age,  in  the  spread  of  Christianity  by  missionary 
labor,  in  the  guidance  of  ecclesiastical  affairs,  and  in  the  sphere 
of  Christian  philanthropy,  there  have  appeared  eminent  leaders. 
The  same  is  true  in  the  field  of  theological  thought.  Names 
like  those  of  Origen,  Athanasius,  Augustine,  Luther,  are  them¬ 
selves  landmarks  in  the  course  of  doctrinal  history.  Yet  no 
more  than  in  secular  history  is  the  agency  of  individuals  to  be 
magnified.  Not  only  their  personal  influence,  but  not  less  the 
force  of  a  general  current  of  which  it  is  partly  the  outflow,  is  to 
be  taken  into  the  account.  They  may  furnish  a  voice  to  wide¬ 
spread,  albeit  undefined  and  unspoken,  convictions,  and  for  this 
reason  may  evoke  responsive  assent  from  Christian  people. 

There  are  three  factors  which  are,  or  should  be,  conjoined  in 


INTRODUCTION 


I  I 

the  framing  of  theological  doctrines.  jlhe  first  is  the  authorita¬ 
tive  source  of  knowledge  on  the  subject,  namely  the  Scriptures. 
Even  the  Church  of  Rome  holds  that  the  supplementary  contents 
of  tradition  are  found,  obscurely  at  least,  in  the  sacred  writings. 
Normative  authority  belongs  to  the  Bible.  It  is  the  objective 
rule  of  faith.  It  is  not  robbed  of  this  character  in  consequence 
of  modified  theories  of  the  mode  and  extent  of  inspiration.  If  it 
be  alleged  that  Christ  is  the  one  authority,  yet  it  is  through  a 
critical  study  of  the  Scriptures,  apart  from  subjective  prejudice, 
that  the  knowledge  of  Christ  is  to  be  obtained./  But  Christianity 
is  designed  to  mould  the  inward  life.  Christiln  experience,  the 
correlate  of  the  written  Gospel,  has  its  place  as  a  touchstone  for 
distinguishing  Christian  truth  from  error.  Believers  are  taught 
by  the  Spirit.  They  are  enabled  to  discern  spiritual  things,  which 
are  presented  in  verbal  form  on  the  page  of  Scripture.1  The  -In¬ 
tellect,  moreover,  has  an  office  to  perform.  Its  function  is  to 
translate  the  truth  which  the  Bible  teaches  and  the  soul  appro¬ 
priates  in  a  living  experience,  into  lucid  statements.  The  Word, 
the  Spirit,  the  Intellect,  or  Scripture,  Experience,  Science,  are  the 
factors  by  whose  combined  agency  the  Gospel  is  rendered  into 
systematic  expressions  of  doctrine.  When  the  right  relation  of 
these  several  factors  to  one  another  is  disturbed,  when  an  undue 
predominance  is  accorded  to  either  of  them  at  the  cost  of  its 
associates,  ill  consequences  ensue.  There  may  be  an  abuse  of  the 
authoritative  element.  There  may  be  a  servile  reliance  on  in¬ 
herited  interpretations  of  Scripture,  or  the  adoption  of  meanings 
having  no  other  ground  than  ecclesiastical  prescription.  The 
result  is  a  traditionalism,  which  fails  to  penetrate  to  the  core  of 
Scriptural  teaching.  This  spirit  prevailed  in  the  Middle  Ages,  and 
is  with  difficulty  exorcised  from  most  of  the  branches  of  the 
Church.  There  must  be  scope  for  the  free  activity  of  the  Intel¬ 
lect  and  of  Christian  Feeling.  When  Feeling,  however,  comes  to 
be  considered  an  immediate  fountain  of  knowledge,  the  intelli¬ 
gence  is  deprived  of  its  rights,  and  the  Bible  sinks  below  its 
proper  level.  The  result  is  Mysticism  in  the  objectionable  form. 
This  term  is  not  unfrequently  used  to  stigmatize  all  forms  of  relig¬ 
ious  experience  in  which  there  enters  an  unusual  warmth  of  emo¬ 
tion.  If  it  be  Mysticism  to  hold  that  obedience  is  the  road  to 

1  For  good  remarks  on  the  relation  of  faith  to  the  objective  form  of  Script¬ 
ure,  see  Dorner’s  Hist,  of  Prot.  Theology ,  Vol.  I.  Div.  ii.  c.  4. 


12 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


knowledge,  in  respect  to  divine  things,  and  to  certainty  of  con¬ 
viction,  or  to  hold  that  insight  into  the  realities  of  religious  faith 
presupposes  an  inward  experience,  the  New  Testament  is  open  to 
the  charge  of  being  a  mystical  book.1  “  It  is  plain  that  the  relig¬ 
ious,  the  believing,  man  as  such  is  a  Mystic ;  for  whoever  is  not 
conscious  of  God,  does  not  feel  Him,  can  neither  know  Him  nor 
revere  Him ;  but  whoever  only  makes  Him  an  object  of  thought 
without  loving  Him  and  becoming  pure  in  heart,  cannot  know 
Him  in  a  living  way.”  2  Mysticism  may  be  used  as  the  syno¬ 
nym  of  ecstasy,  —  the  transport  of  feeling  in  which  thought  and 
will  are  merged.  Mysticism,  in  the  sense  in  which  it  is  produc¬ 
tive  of  error  in  the  sphere  of  Christian  doctrine,  is  the  assump¬ 
tion  that  to  the  individual  there  are  vouchsafed  visions  of  truth 
exceeding  the  limits  of  the  written  Revelation.  It  involves  the 
assumption  that  feeling  is  a  direct  source  of  knowledge.  “  When,” 
says  Coleridge,  “  a  man  refers  to  inward  feelings  and  experiences 
of  which  mankind  at  large  are  not  conscious,  as  evidences  of  the 
truth  of  any  opinion,  such  a  man  I  call  a  Mystic.”  3  Illumination 
is  made  to  stretch  over  ground  not  within  the  circuit  of  the  Chris¬ 
tian  Revelation.  Of  course,  the  Mystic  is  tempted  to  undervalue 
the  Scriptures.  Why  take  a  lamp  in  our  hands  when  the  sun’s 
rays  are  falling  directly  upon  us  ?  It  -is  likewise  natural  for  the 
Mystic  to  disparage  reason  and  science.  Why  should  the  under¬ 
standing  explore  for  truth  which  we  have  only  to  look  within  to 
behold  ?  A  third  species  of  perversion  in  the  framing  of  doctrine 
arises  from  the  exaggeration  of  the  intellectual  factor.  The  con¬ 
sequence  is  Rationalism.  Rationalism  has  been  well  described  as 
“  a  usurpation  of  the  understanding.”  The  function  of  conscience 
and  the  affections  as  auxiliaries  in  the  ascertainment  of  truth  is 
partially  or  wholly  ignored.  The  authority  of  the  Scriptures  is 
openly  or  virtually  set  aside.  The  attempt  is  made  to  construct 
theology  in  the  dry  light  of  the  understanding,  independently  of 
spiritual  experience  and  of  objective  authority.  Under  this  proc¬ 
ess  the  deeper  truths  of  Christianity,  which  shade  off  into  mys¬ 
tery,  are  likely  to  be  discarded.  In  the  end  religion  is  spun  out 
of  the  mind  through  a  metaphysical  process  in  which  the  facts  of 
Revelation,  if  recognized  at  all,  are  shorn  of  historical  reality. 

1  See  John  vii.  17,  xviii.  37  ;  Matt.  xi.  15,  xiii.  16  ;  1  John  iv.  8. 

2  C.  I.  Nitzsch,  DGM.,  p.  37. 

3  Aids  to  Reflection  (Conclusion). 


INTRODUCTION 


13 


Such  was  the  outcome  of  the  modern  Pantheistic  Schools  of 
speculative  Philosophy  in  Germany.  Mysticism  and  Rationalism 
are  at  one  in  rejecting  an  objective  standard  of  doctrine,  an 
authority  exterior  to  the  individual.  The  one  enthrones  feeling, 
the  other  enthrones  understanding,  in  the  seat  of  authority. 
They  are  different  forms  of  a  one-sided  subjectivism.  But  they 
often  afford  an  illustration  of  the  maxim  that  extremes  meet.  An 
excess  of  emotion  in  the  one,  or  the  quenching  of  fervor  in  the 
other,  leads  to  an  exchange  of  places.  The  Mystic  cools  into 
the  Rationalist ;  the  Rationalist  warms  into  the  Mystic.1 

Writers  in  past  times  on  the  History  of  Doctrine  have  remarked 
that  the  principal  topics  or  branches  of  Christian  doctrine  have 
each,  to  the  exclusion  of  the  rest,  absorbed  the  attention  of  a 
particular  people.  Theology,  or  the  Person  of  Christ  and  the 
Trinity,  engrossed  attention  in  the  ancient  Greek  Church  ;  Anthro¬ 
pology,  the  subject  of  sin  and  grace,  was  the  subject  of  investiga¬ 
tion  in  the  Latin  Church ;  and  Soteriology,  or  the  doctrine  of 
Reconciliation,  in  the  Teutonic  Church,  the  Church  of  the  Refor¬ 
mation.  It  has  been  said  that  in  each  case  the  subject  of  absorbing 
interest  corresponded  to  the  mental  habit  of  the  people  by  whom 
it  was  especially  considered  and  discussed.  Athanasius,  Augustine, 
Luther,  stand  as  representatives  of  tendencies  of  thought  inherent 
in  the  nations  or  races  to  which  they  respectively  belonged.  It 
has  been  objected  to  this  representation,  that  in  no  period  has  it 
been  the  real  intention  to  take  up  and  solve  a  single  problem,  that 
the  general  end  of  Christianity  has  been  conceived  of  essentially 
in  the  same  way,  and  that  the  purpose  has  always  been  —  the  pur¬ 
pose  of  Greek,  Latin,  and  Teuton  —  to  set  forth  Christianity  in  its 
entirety.2  This  criticism  is  just.  The  statement  should  rather  be 
that  in  each  of  the  epochs  the  prevailing  interpretation  of  Chris¬ 
tianity  has  corresponded  to  the  special  characteristics  of  time 
and  race.  The  historic  result,  however,  has  been  substantially 
that  which  is  expressed  in  the  statement  that  is  criticised. 

Among  theories  pertaining  to  the  historical  development  of 
Christian  theology,  there  have  been  brought  forward  in  modern 

1  “Die  Mystik,”  says  Harnack,  “  ist  in  der  Regel  phantastisch  ausgefiihrte 
Rationalismus,  und  der  Rationalismus  ist  abgeblasste  Mystik.”  DG.  Vol.  II. 
416,  N.  2. 

2  Ritschl,  Die  Christl.  Lehre  d.  Rechtfertigung  u.  Versohnung  (2  ed.), 
Vol.  I.  p.  3. 


14 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


days  two,  unlike  in  their  character,  that  are  especially  worthy  of 
notice. 

1.  The  theory  of  Dr.  Baur,  the  leader  of  the  Tubingen  School, 
was  matched  to  the  Hegelian  dialectic.  In  the  process  of  evolu¬ 
tion,  thesis  involves  and  produces  antithesis,  thesis  and  antithesis 
engender  a  higher  unity.  This  in  turn  is  differentiated  and  leads 
on  to  like  triple  movements,  until  the  implicit  contents  of  the  idea 
are  completely  evolved,  and  the  finality,  the  developed  absolute, 
is  reached.  Baur  assumed  an  original  Petrine,  judaizing  type  of 
doctrine,  of  which  the  Pauline  teaching  was  the  antithesis  ;  thesis 
and  antithesis  resolved  themselves  into  a  compromising  system. 
By  a  process  of  this  kind,  catholic  theology  emerges,  the  final  stage 
of  which  is  the  Nicene  definitions.  In  this  naturalistic  develop¬ 
ment,  which  runs  through  several  centuries,  most  of  the  New  Tes¬ 
tament  canonical  writings  come  in  as  post-apostolic  productions. 
They  are  so  many  landmarks  in  the  progress  of  the  historic  evolu¬ 
tion.  In  this  theory,  retrograde  movements,  aberrations  of  greater 
or  less  moment,  are  excluded.  The  course  of  opinion  moves  on 
under  a  necessary  law.  The  fundamental  postulate,  which  history 
must  be  so  construed  as  to  verify,  is  an  ideal  Pantheism. 

2.  An  interesting  theory  of  development  has  been  brought  for¬ 
ward  in  later  times  by  distinguished  writers  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church.  It  has  served  as  a  means  of  upholding  specific  tenets  and 
practices  for  which  it  is  increasingly  difficult  to  find  a  basis  either 
in  the  canonical  Scriptures  or  in  the  primitive  Church.  The  most 
eminent  expounders  of  the  general  theory  have  been  De  Maistre 
in  France,  Mohler  in  Germany,  and  the  late  Cardinal  Newman. 
We  confine  our  attention  here  to  Newman’s  exposition.  It  is  pre¬ 
sented  in  his  Essay  on  Development,  which  was  written  in  1845, 
simultaneously  with  his  passage  from  the  Anglican  over  to  the 
Roman  Church.  The  starting-point  of  Newman’s  theory  is  the 
avowal  that  the  teaching  comprised  in  the  original  deposit  of  re¬ 
vealed  truth,  which  was  promulgated  by  Christ  and  the  Apostles, 
opens  its  contents  in  an  explicit  form  only  by  degrees  and  as  time 
advances.  There  has  been  a  continuous  unfolding  of  the  latent 
contents  of  the  original  teaching,  and  this  has  gone  forward  under 
the  guardianship  of  the  infallible  Church,  by  which  error  is  kept 
out.  All  ideas,  it  is  said,  except  such  as  are  on  the  plane  of 
mathematical  truth,  —  all  living  ideas,  such  as  have  to  do  with  hu¬ 
man  nature  or  human  duty,  politics  or  religion,  —  are  fruitful  ideas. 


INTRODUCTION 


15 


They  do  not  remain  inert  in  the  minds  into  which  they  fall.  They 
are  not  passively  received.  They  produce  agitation,  they  are 
turned  over  and  over  in  reflection,  new  lights  are  cast  upon  them, 
new  judgments  arise  respecting  them,  ferment  and  confusion  ensue. 
At  length  from  all  this  commotion  definite  doctrine  emerges.  The 
new  idea  is  looked  at  in  its  relation  to  other  doctrines  and  facts, 
to  other  religions  and  philosophies.  It  is  questioned  and  assailed, 
it  is  explained  and  illustrated.  In  the  case  of  a  moral  or  theologi¬ 
cal  truth,  the  final  outcome  is  an  ethical  code,  a  theological  dogma 
or  system.  The  point  to  be  observed  is  that  the  germ  stands  to 
the  outcome  in  a  genetic  relation.  The  latter  is  the  just  and  ade¬ 
quate  representation  of  the  original  idea.  It  was  in  that  idea  as 
the  blossom  is  in  the  bud.  It  was  what  the  original  idea  meant 
from  the  first.  For  example,  the  Wesleyanism  of  to-day  may  be 
said  to  be  the  legitimate  growth  of  the  seed  sown  in  the  last 
century  by  its  founder.  Newman  recognizes  the  possibility  of  cor¬ 
ruption,  as  in  the  case  of  any  growth.  This  interrupts  or  prevents 
healthy  development.  But  there  are  tests  which  avail  to  determine 
whether  given  phenomena  in  the  religious  province  are  normal  or 
the  opposite.  These  are  such  as  ‘preservation  of  the  idea/  ‘power 
of  assimilation/  ‘logical  sequence/  ‘chronic  continuance/  and  so 
forth.  On  the  basis  of  this  general  view,  Newman  argues  that 
there  is  an  a  priori  probability  of  a  development  in  Christianity, 
and  a  further  probability  of  the  same  sort  that  there  will  be  a 
developing  Authority  to  discriminate  between  that  which  is  sound 
and  that  which  is  corrupt.  The  main  contention  is  that  the 
Roman  Catholic  religion,  as  we  now  behold  it,  is  the  legitimate 
heir,  successor,  and  representative  of  primitive  Christianity. 

There  is  not  a  little  which  is  not  only  striking  but  well-founded 
in  the  preliminary  portions  of  Newman’s  discussion  —  that  part 
which  deals  with  the  vital  character  of  moral  and  spiritual  truth. 
But  as  soon  as  the  possibility  of  corruption  through  the  introduc¬ 
tion  of  alien  and  false  elements  is  recognized,  the  question  whether 
there  is  a  constituted  authority  competent  to  detect  and  cast  aside 
what  is  thus  abnormal  must  be  settled,  and  it  must  be  settled,  not 
by  an  a  priori  speculation,  but  by  a  searching  inquiry  into  the  con¬ 
sistency  of  Roman  teaching  with  itself  and  with  the  primitive  docu¬ 
ments  of  the  Christian  religion.  The  theory  must  be  brought  to 
the  touchstone  of  history.  In  such  a  matter,  no  merely  a  p?'ion 
inference,  even  if  it  may  seem  plausible,  can  be  deemed  to  be  con- 


i6 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


elusive.  Another  point  of  much  weight  was  brought  forward  by 
Canon  Mozley  in  his  answer  to  Newman.1  There  may  be  corrup¬ 
tion  from  mere  exaggeration.  The  circumstance  that  an  opinion 
or  a  practice  grows  out  of  something  true  and  good  does  not  of 
itself  prove  that  opinion  or  practice  to  be  true  and  right.  An  over¬ 
growth  is  in  itself  an  abuse.  Aristotle’s  theory  of  the  virtues  is 
that  they  are  a  mean  between  extremes.  For  example,  rashness  is 
courage  in  excess ;  timidity  is  caution  in  excess.  That  a  natural 
and  proper  veneration  of  the  Virgin  Mary  runs  into  the  worship  of 
the  Virgin  is  no  sufficient  defence  of  such  a  practice.  The  theory 
of  Newman  was  directly  at  variance  with  the  position  taken  by  the 
old  polemical  writers  in  behalf  of  Rome,  such  as  Bellarmine  and 
Bossuet.  As  was  early  pointed  out,  Newman’s  thesis  involves  the 
concession  that  the  Roman  Catholicism  of  to-day  is  not  the  same 
as  the  faith  of  the  primitive  Church.  The  old  ground  of  a  literal 
identity  is  forsaken.  The  limit  of  the  contention  is  that  the  sys¬ 
tem  of  to-day  is  an  offshoot  from  the  system  planted  by  the  Saviour  < 
and  his  Apostles,  as  that  system  is  disclosed  in  the  documents  of 
the  Christian  religion  and  in  early  Church  History.2 

It  has  been  customary  up  to  a  recent  date  to  divide  Doctrinal  * 
History  into  two  parts,  the  General  and  the  Special  History  of 
Doctrine,  and  to  complete  the  account  of  each  period  before 
advancing  to  the  next.  Under  the  General  History  there  is  pre¬ 
sented  a  sketch  of  the  characteristics  of  the  period,  with  a  notice 
of  fhe  principal  themes  of  discussion  and  of  the  principal  writers 
to  whom  we  are  to  resort  for  materials.  The  General  History  is 
an  outline  map  of  the  period  to  be  traversed.  Under  the  Special 
History  the  matter  is  collected  under  the  loci  or  rubrics  of  the 
theological  system.  This  is  the  method  of  Mtinscher,  Neander, 
also  substantially  of  Baur  and  of  most  of  the  other  authors. 
Baumgarten-Crusius  gives  the  General  History  as  a  whole,  under 
successive  periods,  and  lets  the  Special  History  follow  under  like 
divisions.  The  same  course  is  pursued  by  Ritschl,  in  an 

essay  published  in  1871,  objected  to  the  traditional  method  of 

1  J.  B.  Mozley,  Theory  of  Development,  a  Criticism  of  Dr.  Newman's  Essay, 
etc.  (1879).  Ambiguities  in  Newman’s  theory,  and  voices  against  it  from  the 
Roman  Catholic  side,  are  referred  to  by  Mozley  on  pp.  196-223. 

2  See  Bishop  Thirlwall’s  Charge.  For  a  trenchant  criticism  of  Newman’s 
theory,  see  Fairbairn’s  The  Place  of  Remains,  Literary  and  Theological  (Vol. 

I.  pp.  99-144).  Christ  in  Modern  Theology,  B.  I.  c.  i. 


INTRODUCTION 


*7 


separating  the  General  from  the  Special  History,  and  to  the  plan 
of  arranging  the  matter  under  the  topics  of  the  doctrinal  system.1 
He  styled  it  an  anatomic  as  distinguished  from  an  organic  or  phys¬ 
iologic  method.  It  fails  to  give  due  emphasis  to  that  which  is 
distinctive  in  the  current  of  thought  in  each  period.  Ritschl’s 
essay  was  a  review  of  the  work  of  F.  Nitzsch,  who  had  made  an 
approach  to  the  method  approved  by  him.  This  method  has 
been  exemplified  by  Harnack  and  by  some  other  authors.  It  has 
the  advantage  of  presenting  better  in  its  unity  the  system  of  a 
great  theologian,  as  Origen  or  Augustine,  instead  of  bringing  for¬ 
ward  its  parts  —  the  disjecta  membra  —  separated  from  one  another. 
Thomasius,  in  the  part  of  his  work  which  covers  the  patristic  age, 
takes  up  the  three  “  Central  Doctrines,”  one  by  one,  but  he  con¬ 
nects  with  each  leading  section,  either  “  peripheral  ”  matter  on  other 
topics,  or  illustrative  supplements.  In  the  subsequent  periods,  this 
method  gives  way  to  a  more  miscellaneous  classification.  What¬ 
ever  plan  is  adopted,  the  suggestions  of  Ritschl  ought  to  be  kept 
in  mind,  and  a  due  perspective  and  a  proper  unity  to  be  secured. 
This  is  measurably  effected  —  for  example,  by  Neander  —  through 
cross-references  and  brief  recapitulation.  It  is  difficult  and  need¬ 
less  to  carry  through  all  the  periods  a  uniform  scheme. 

The  chief  landmarks  in  the  course  of  Doctrinal  History  are 
easily  discerned.  The  earliest  writings  of  a  theological  cast  were 
naturally  apologetic.  Christian  truth  was  defended  against  assaults 
without  and  within  the  Christian  fold.  Then  followed  within  the 
Church  widespread  controversy  on  central  points  of  doctrine  — 
especially  the  Trinity  and  the  Incarnation  —  the  issue  of  which 
was  the  Catholic  theology.  In  the  West  there  were  controversies 
on  Sin  and  Grace,  which  settled,  on  these  themes,  but  with  less 
precision,  the  bounds  of  orthodoxy.  A  period  of  intellectual  stag¬ 
nancy  ensued,  not  entirely  unbroken,  but  lasting  for  several  cen¬ 
turies.  Then  occurred  the  Rise  of  Scholasticism,  and  the  opening 
of  a  new  theological  era,  which  extended  to  the  Reformation.  At 
that  point  begins  the  modern  period  in  which  criticism  and  essays 
at  reconstruction  are  defining  characteristics. 

The  Ancient  Period,  embracing  —  to  speak  generally  —  the  first 
six  centuries,  was  productive  as  regards  the  contents  of  the  theo¬ 
logical  system,  and  certain  doctrines  were  stamped  with  the  seal 

1  Jahrb.  d.  deutsch.  Theol.  (1871,  pp.  191-214);  reprinted  in  Ritschl’s 
Gesammelt.  Aufsdtze  (pp.  147-170). 
c 


1 8 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


of  church  authority.  The  Mediaeval  Period  set  in  order  trans¬ 
mitted  beliefs  and  reduced  them  to  a  systematic  form,  with  the  aid 
of  Philosophy  and  under  the  eyes  of  the  Roman  hierarchy.  The 
Modern  Age  has  witnessed  efforts  to  reconstruct  the  system  in  the 
light  of  the  Scriptures  and  in  relation  to  the  discoveries  of  science 
in  its  various  departments.  During  the  first  three  centuries  dis¬ 
cussions  went  forward  without  verdicts  from  a  universally  recog¬ 
nized  authority.  In  the  several  centuries  that  immediately  follow, 
there  intervenes  the  authoritative  action  of  oecumenical  councils. 
From  the  end  of  the  Patristic  Period  to  about  the  middle  of  the 
eleventh  century  there  is  an  interval  wherein  —  save  in  a  brief 
season  in  the  age  of  Charlemagne  —  the  products  of  intellectual 
activity,  except  in  the  form  of  compilations,  are  scanty.  At  that 
date  there  springs  up  a  fresh  intellectual  life,  the  Scholastic  era 
opens,  and  the  work  of  organizing  the  system  fairly  begins.  Prot¬ 
estantism  initiated  the  attempt  to  reform  the  creed  on  the  basis  of 
the  exclusive  authority  of  the  Bible  and  of  an  exchange  of  the 
Scholastic  theory  of  Justification  for  the  Pauline  teaching.  The 
various  Protestant  confessions  of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  cen¬ 
turies  were  framed  on  the  basis  of  the  principle  of  the  supreme 
authority  of  the  Scriptures.  With  the  approach  of  the  eighteenth 
century  there  are  discerned  the  beginnings  of  a  new  era.  It 
may  be  described,  in  a  general  way,  as  aiming  to  conform  the 
theological  system  to  the  conclusions  of  scientific  inquiry  and  criti¬ 
cism,  or  to  bring  into  unity  and  harmony  the  knowledge  derived 
from  revelation  and  that  ascertained  through  man’s  natural  powers. 
It  is  the  modern  era  in  which  we  are  now  living. 

In  warfare  with  the  Church  of  Rome  and  with  one  another  the 
different  Protestant  bodies  intrenched  themselves  behind  elaborate 
Confessions.  There  arose  in  process  of  time  a  kind  of  Protestant 
Scholasticism.  Resistance  was  awakened.  It  was  more  and  more 
felt  that  the  freedom  of  thought  which  Protestantism  had  seemed 
to  promise  was  unduly  restricted.  Owing  to  this  discontent,  in 
conjunction  with  other  causes  soon  to  be  adverted  to,  there  sprang 
up  an  intellectual  revolt.  This  was  unhappily  not  tempered  and 
kept  within  bounds  by  a  spirit  of  practical  piety,  which  had  been 
chilled  by  theological  contention  and  by  the  religious  wars  in  the 
different  countries  —  of  which  the  Thirty  Years’  War  was  the  most 
prolonged  and  destructive.  The  skeptical  tendencies  of  the  Re¬ 
naissance,  which  had  been  stifled  for  the  time  by  the  religious  life 


INTRODUCTION 


19 


of  the  Protestant  Reform,  revived  in  full  activity.  There  were 
other  phenomena  of  marked  effect  in  the  same  general  direction. 
Society  had  advanced  to  a  new  epoch  in  culture.  Education  was 
becoming  liberated  from  exclusively  clerical  control.  The  partial 
blight  which  absorption  in  theological  conflicts  had  cast  for  the  time 
upon  the  literary  life  of  the  Renaissance  was  passing  away.  Other 
studies  were  drawing  away  a  portion  of  the  attention  which  had 
been  so  much  concentrated  upon  theology.  Under  the  auspices 
of  Descartes,  philosophy  was  breaking  away  from  the  leading- 
strings  by  which  it  had  been  held  by  the  Church.  The  names  of 
Copernicus  and  Francis  Bacon  suggest  the  dawn  of  the  new  epoch 
in  the  inductive  investigation  of  nature.  The  cultivation  of  natural 
and  physical  science,  and  the  knowledge  thus  derived,  have  brought 
forward  new  problems  for  the  theologian  to  solve.  Zeal  in  his¬ 
torical  inquiry  has  kept  pace  with  the  ardor  felt  in  the  studies 
which  pertain  to  the  material  world.  Traditional  beliefs  in  theol¬ 
ogy,  heretofore  unquestioned,  are  confronted  with  data  gathered 
by  historical  researches.  It  might  be  expected  that  in  this  wide 
range  of  curiosity,  this  quest  for  knowledge  in  all  directions,  the 
Bible  would  become  the  object  of  a  more  exhaustive  scrutiny. 
Nor  is  there  cause  for  wonder  if  the  critical  spirit,  with  no  spiritual 
discernment  to  accompany  it,  working  solely  in  the  dry  light  of  the 
understanding,  should  give  rise  even  to  extreme  developments 
of  Rationalism.  That  the  modern  age  is  scientific  is  a  truism. 
Men  are  everywhere  seeking  for  defined  and  verified  knowl¬ 
edge.  Science,  in  the  comprehensive  meaning  of  the  term, 
requires  theology  to  take  account  of  its  teachings  and  to  adjust 
itself  to  them.  Conflicts  thus  occasioned,  modifications  of  opin¬ 
ion  thus  produced,  characterize  the  present  period  of  Doctrinal 
History. 

The  Fathers  of  the  first  and  second  centuries  who  wrote  against 
heresies,  especially  Irenseus,  Hippolytus,  and  Tertullian,  were  the 
first  authors  who  brought  together  materials  for  the  History  of 
Doctrine.  Epiphanius,  in  his  polemical  treatise,  the  “  Panarion,” 
describes  not  less  than  eighty  heretical  parties.  The  series  of  the 
ancient  Greek  ecclesiastical  historians,  of  whom  Eusebius  is  the 
first,  are  sources  of  knowledge  respecting  doctrine  as  well  as 
Church  affairs  in  general.  In  the  eight  century,  the  Greek  theo¬ 
logian,  John  of  Damascus,  presents  in  his  theological  treatise  both 
a  catalogue  of  heresies  and  numerous  extracts  from  the  Greek 


20 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


Fathers.  In  the  West,  a  still  earlier  writer,  Isidore  of  Spain, 
furnishes  a  collection  of  excerpts  from  the  Latin  authors,  Augus¬ 
tine,  Gregory  the  Great,  and  others.  The  Reformation  stimulated 
researches  into  the  tenets  of  the  early  Church  as  well  as  of  later 
ages.  In  the  “  Magdeburg  Centuries,”  and  in  polemical  publica¬ 
tions  without  number,  the  history  of  the  doctrines  in  dispute  was 
discussed,  of  course  commonly  in  a  controversial  spirit.  The 
great  English  divines  of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries 
explored  the  writings  of  the  patristic  and  scholastic  doctors,  and 
used  the  learning  thus  acquired  in  the  contests  between  Protestant 
and  Catholic,  Churchman  and  Puritan.  The  famous  scholars  of  the 
Arminian  School,  on  the  continent,  devoted  to  the  early  Fathers, 
as  well  as  to  the  Scriptures,  a  critical  examination.  In  the  middle 
of  the  seventeenth  century  there  appeared  the  first  works  treating 
expressly  of  the  history  of  doctrine.  These  were  two  in  number, 
one  by  a  Protestant,  the  other  by  a  Roman  Catholic.  The  first 
was  written  by  a  learned  Scotchman,  John  Forbes  of  Corse  —  the 
Institutiones  Historico-  Theologies  (Amsterdam,  1645).  It  was 
designed  to  demonstrate  the  agreement  of  the  tenets  of  the  Re¬ 
formed  Church  with  primitive  orthodoxy.  The  second  is  the  work 
of  the  Jesuit  scholar,  Dionysius  Petavius — De  Theologicis  Dog- 
matibus  (Paris,  1644-50).  It  is  not  only  erudite  and  acute  ;  it  is 
written  with  a  certain  liveliness  of  style.  The  concession  that 
Ante-Nicene  Fathers  contain  statements  on  points  of  doctrine 
which  fall  below  the  creeds  of  later  date  has  led  to  the  hasty  infer¬ 
ence  that  the  author  was  an  Arian  in  disguise.  Bishop  Bull’s  con¬ 
jecture  that  his  purpose  was  to  compel  his  readers  to  fall  back  on 
Church  authority  as  the  umpire  in  doctrinal  questions,  is  equally 
unsupported.1  Petavius  was  not  blind  to  the  principle  of  theo¬ 
logical  development.  In  the  eighteenth  century  the  contributions 
of  Mosheim  to  the  history  of  doctrine  are  thorough  and  candid. 
The  Rationalistic  School,  of  which  Semler  was  the  leader,  gave  to 
Doctrinal  History  its  distinct  place  as  a  branch  of  theology.  But 
from  the  point  of  view  of  this  school  it  could  only  be  regarded  as 
a  record  of  clashing  opinions.  In  this  period,  the  most  merito¬ 
rious  author  in  this  department  was  Miinscher.  His  text-books 
are  mostly  made  up  of  passages  from  the  ecclesiastical  writers, 
arranged  under  appropriate  topics.  It  is  only  during  the  present 
century  that  works  have  been  produced  on  Doctrinal  History 

1  See  Bull’s  collected  Works,  Vol.  V.  pp.  12,  13. 


INTRODUCTION 


21 


which  have  exhibited  a  due  insight  and  attained  to  a  scientific 
form.  The  History  of  Doctrine  by  Baumgarten-Crusius  brings 
together  a  mass  of  concisely  stated,  accurate  information,  drawn 
from  original  sources.  But  the  scientific  character  of  which  we 
speak  belongs  eminently  to  Neander’s  historical  writings  on  the 
subject,  and  to  the  writings  of  Baur.  Gieseler’s  posthumous  frag¬ 
ment  stops  at  the  Reformation.  It  is  not  without  value  as  a  sup¬ 
plement  to  his  Church  History,  in  which  the  history  of  doctrine  is  of 
great  value  for  its  documentary  references  and  extracts.  Hagen- 
bach’s  work  contains  a  store  of  information,  but  would  be  more 
valuable  were  it  less  a  conglomerate.  The  American  edition  (from 
the  author’s  fourth  edition)  was  enriched  by  additions  on  English 
and  American  theology  from  the  pen  of  Henry  B.  Smith.  The 
excellent  book  of  Friedrich  Nitzsch  terminates  at  the  end  of  the 
patristic  period.  The  Doctrinal  History  of  Harnack,  in  which 
the  distinction  between  the  General  and  Special  History  dis¬ 
appears,  is  a  brilliant  exposition  of  the  subject,  and  presents, 
more  especially  in  the  early  period,  the  fruits  of  a  quite  thorough 
investigation  of  the  sources.  The  author’s  opinions  as  to  the 
origin  of  the  New  Testament  writings  and  on  Christian  doctrines 
are  made  apparent  on  its  pages.  The  briefer  work  of  Harnack  is 
a  condensed  but  spirited  review  of  the  subject.  One  of  the  best 
of  the  compendiums  is  the  Leitfaden  of  Friedrich  Loofs.  See- 
borg’s  Lehrbuch  is  a  valuable  aid  to  students.  In  Schmid’s  Lehr- 
buch  (edited  by  Hauck),  the  text  is  brief,  but  the  collection  of 
extracts  is  judiciously  made.  The  excellent  text-book  of  Thom- 
asius  is  the  production  of  a  scholar  versed  in  the  sources,  writing 
from  the  point  of  view  of  evangelical  Lutheranism.  Renan’s  series 
—  Histoire  des  Origines  du  Chris tianisme  —  contains  chapters 
pertaining  to  doctrine  which  are  well  worthy  of  attention.  Shedd’s 
History  of  Doctrine  is  a  vigorous  discussion  of  leading  topics  by 
an  earnest  defender  of  Calvinism.  It  terminates  with  the  rise  of 
the  Socinian  and  Arminian  systems.  Sheldon’s  History  of  Doc¬ 
trine  is  lucid  and  is  brought  down  to  a  recent  date. 

There  is  a  considerable  number  of  valuable  monographs  on 
particular  doctrines.  Such  are  Dorner’s  History  of  the  Doctrine 
of  the  Person  of  Christ,  Ritschl  on  the  Doctrine  of  Justification, 
Baur  on  the  Trinity  and  on  the  Atonement.  Treatises  not  dis¬ 
tinctively  historical  contain  much  historical  matter.  Such,  for 
example,  are  Julius  Muller’s  work  on  the  Doctrine  of  Sin,  Liddon’s 


22 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


Bampton  Lectures  on  the  Divinity  of  Christ,  Fairbairn’s  “The 
Place  of  Christ  in  Modern  Theology.”  The  Protestant  Real- 
Encyclopedie  (edited  in  the  new  edition  by  Herzog,  Plitt  and 
Hauck),  Wetzer  and  Welte,  Kirchenlexikon  [Roman  Catholic], 
(2d  ed.  1886  sq.),  Smith  and  Wace’s  Dictionary  of  Christian 
Biography ,  are  instructive  on  the  subject  of  Doctrinal  History. 
As  to  the  first  three  centuries,  the  Prolegomena  and  Notes  of 
Professor  McGiffert,  pertaining  to  this  subject,  in  his  edition 
of  the  Church  History  of  Eusebius  (1890),  are  very  valuable. 


PART  I 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


<h;^oo 


PERIOD  I 

THE  RISE  AND  EARLY  TYPES  OF  THEOLOGY  TO  THE  COM¬ 
PLETE  SYSTEM  OF  ORIGEN  AND  TO  THE  FULLY  ESTAB¬ 
LISHED  CONCEPTION  OF  THE  PRE-MUNDANE  PERSONAL 
LOGOS  (c.  A.D.  300) 

- eo» - 


CHAPTER  I 

APOSTOLIC  CHRISTIANITY  -  PALESTINIAN  AND  HELLENISTIC  JUDAISM 

- GREEK  PHILOSOPHY  AND  GENTILE  CULTURE 

The  testimony  and  teachings  of  the  Apostles  constitute  the 
authentic  sources  of  Christian  theology.  They  are  comprised  in 
the  New  Testament  writings.  The  exposition  of  these  documents 
is  the  proper  work  of  Biblical  Theology,  for  which  the  Introduction 
to  the  New  Testament  prepares  the  way.  It  is  only  brief  com¬ 
ments  on  the  New  Testament  doctrine  that  can  here  find  a  place. 
The  bond  that  unites  the  Old  Testament  with  the  New,  the 
religion  of  Israel  with  the  Gospel,  is  the  idea  of  the  kingdom  of 
God.  It  is  predicted,  prefigured,  initiated,  in  the  earlier  system ; 
it  is  realized  in  the  later.  The  new  dispensation  is  the  fulfilment 
of  that  which  was  foretokened  in  the  old.  John  the  Baptist  dis¬ 
cerned  that  his  office  was  that  of  a  herald  of  the  messianic  king¬ 
dom.1  So  it  was  represented  by  Jesus.2  Jesus  Himself  appeared 

1  Matt.  iii.  1 1. 

2  Matt.  xi.  13,  14  (Luke  xvi.  16);  Mark  ix.  12,  13  (of.  Malachi  iii.  23). 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 

in  the  character  of  the  head  of  the  kingdom.  If  He  avoided 
publicly  proclaiming  His  regal  station,  it  was  to  preclude  popular 
demonstrations  springing  from  false  ideals  of  the  Messiah  and  the 
messianic  reign.  The  Sermon  on  the  Mount  was  the  legislation 
of  the  new  kingdom.  The  Mount  of  the  Beatitudes  succeeded 
to  the  Sinai  of  the  Decalogue.  Holiness  and  peace  are  offered  to 
those  who  come  to  Him  and  surrender  themselves  to  His  guidance. 
The  contrast  between  the  course  which  He  pursued  and  the  ideas 
and  expectations  even  of  those  who  believed  in  Him,  naturally 
gave  rise  to  doubts  and  questionings  as  to  His  precise  rank  among 
divine  messengers  and  the  exact  import  of  His  mission.  So  we 
may  account  for  the  conversation  at  Caesarea  Philippi,1  and  the 
message  of  John  the  Baptist.2  In  the  Synoptical  Gospels,  Jesus 
stands  in  such  a  relation  to  God  that  He  alone  knows  God  and  is 
known  by  Him.3  He  is  the  organ  of  the  self-revelation  of  God. 
The  devotion  to  Him  required  in  His  disciples  transcends  that 
which  is  due  in  the  dearest  and  most  sacred  human  relations.4 
His  acceptance  of  the  designation  ‘  Son  of  God,’  and  the  added 
assurance  that  from  that  time  onward  would  be  made  manifest 
His  participation  in  divine  power  and  honor  was  felt  by  the  High 
Priest,  who  discredited  this  avowal,  to  be  nothing  short  of  blas¬ 
phemy.5  By  Him  were  to  be  determined  the  allotments  of  the 
final  judgment.6  Rejected  by  the  Jews,  He  is  nevertheless  con¬ 
scious  that  the  deadly  blow  aimed  at  His  cause  will  open  a  way 
to  its  final  victory.  His  death  will  be  the  means  of  spiritual 
deliverance,  a  “  ransom  ”  for  many,  the  ground  of  the  forgiveness 
of  sin.7  The  kingdom  is  to  advance  gradually,  as  leaven  and  as 
seed  planted  in  the  ground.  It  is  to  come,  and  yet  it  is  a  present 
reality.8  If  taken  away  from  the  chosen  people,  it  will  be  carried 
beyond  their  limits,  even  among  the  heathen.1’  It  is  in  the  souls 
of  men ;  it  is  a  living  force  in  the  bosom  of  society.  Yet  there 
is  an  apocalyptic  side  in  the  Synoptical  portraiture  of  the  king¬ 
dom.  There  is  a  goal  in  the  future,  a  consummation,  or  Second 
Advent  of  the  Christ  to  judgment.  The  Disciples,  knowing  that 

1  Mark  viii.  27-31.  4  Matt.  x.  37. 

2  Matt.  xi.  2,  3.  5  Matt.  xxvi.  64;  Mark  xiv.  61. 

3  Matt.  xi.  27;  Luke  x.  22.  6  Matt.  xxv.  32. 

7  Matt.  xx.  28;  Matt.  xxvi.  28. 

8  Matt.  v.  3,  10;  Mark  x.  14,  15;  Matt.  xxi.  31;  xi.  11  (Luke  vii.  28). 

9  Matt.  xxi.  41;  Mark  xii.  9. 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


25 


they  were  living  in  the  “  Last  Time,”  the  final  stage  of  Revela¬ 
tion,  looked  for  the  speedy  coming  of  the  last  day.  This  antici¬ 
pation  is  more  or  less  distinctly  expressed  in  almost  all  of  the 
New  Testament  writings.1  Principally  through  the  agency  of  the 
Apostle  Paul,  the  Gospel  of  the  kingdom,  with  all  its  privileges, 
was  first  proclaimed  to  the  heathen.  The  older  Apostles,  moved 
by  the  undeniable  evidence  of  God’s  approbation  of  his  work, 
gave  him  “  the  right  hand  of  fellowship,”  it  being  agreed  that 
while  they  should  preach  to  the  Jews,  he,  with  Barnabas,  his 
companion  for  a  while,  should  “go  unto  the  Gentiles.”2  In  the 
Synoptical  Gospels  it  is  in  the  Eschatology  that  the  higher 
nature  and  dignity  of  Christ  are  most  apparent.  In  the  Epistles 
of  Paul,  the  divine  side  of  His  being,  His  preexistence,  His  agency 
in  the  work  of  creation,  are  explicitly  taught.3  The  success  of 
the  mission  to  the  Gentiles,  the  manifest  marks  of  the  divine 
approval  of  it,  the  embittered  temper  of  the  Jews  as  time  went  on, 
the  fall  of  Jerusalem  and  the  breaking  up  of  the  Jewish  nationality, 
had  the  effect  fully  to  establish  that  catholic  interpretation  of 
the  Gospel  of  which  Paul  had  been  the  fervent,  unflinching  cham¬ 
pion.  That,  after  the  death  of  Paul,  the  Apostle  John  took  up 
his  abode  at  Ephesus  is  a  fact  which  is  too  well  attested  to  admit 
of  a  reasonable  doubt.  The  influence  of  his  life  and  teaching, 
emanating  from  that  centre,  is  satisfactorily  proved.  Whatever 
opinion  may  be  held  respecting  the  Johannine  authorship  of  the 
book  of  Revelation,  the  circumstance  that  it  was  so  early  attributed 
to  the  Apostle  John4  is  a  sufficient  proof  of  his  residence  in  Asia 
Minor  and  of  his  authority  in  the  churches  of  that  region.  It  is 
impossible  to  review  here  the  discussion  concerning  the  author¬ 
ship  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  and  of  the  First  Epistle  which  bears 
the  name  of  John.  The  external  proof  is  a  cumulative  argument 
the  weight  of  which  has  seldom  been  duly  estimated  by  the 
opponents  of  the  genuineness  of  these  writings.  The  necessary 
and  pretty  steady  retreat  backward  of  the  adverse  criticism,  from 
the  date  assigned  to  the  Fourth  Gospel  by  Baur  and  his  followers 

1  Matt.  xxiv.  29,  Luke  xviii.  7,  8,  John  i.  21-23  >  cf.  1  J°hn  u.  18,  1  Thess. 
iv.  16,  17,  2  Thess.  ii.  7,  Phil.  iv.  5,  1  Cor.  xvi.  22,  1  Peter  iv.  7,  etc. 

2  Gal.  ii.  9. 

3  Phil.  ii.  6,  7,  2  Cor.  viii.  9,  1  Cor.  viii.  6. 

4  Justin,  Dial.  c.  Tryph .,  c.  81  ;  Iren.  v.  35.  2  ;  Tertullian,  Adv.  Marcion., 
III.  14,  Ibid.  IV.  5  ;  De  Pnescr.  Ilceret.  33. 


2  6 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


(c.  160),  renders  the  problem  of  accounting  for  its  origin,  if 
it  be  considered  spurious,  more  and  more  difficult  of  solution. 
It  is  now  frequently  admitted  by  the  negative  criticism  that  the 
Gospel  includes  authentic  traditions  of  the  teaching  of  John, 
edited,  it  may  be,  by  one  of  his  disciples.  In  the  Fourth  Gospel 
and  in  the  Epistle,  the  conception  of  the  Son  of  God  is  deepened 
and  is  carried  back  into  a  metaphysical  relation  of  Christ  to  the 
Father.  The  preexistence  as  well  as  the  divinity  of  the  Messiah 
are  plainly  set  forth.  The  term  ‘  Logos  ’  in  the  prologue  is  taken 
up  from  current  phraseology,  which  had  its  roots  in  the  Old 
Testament  and  the  Old  Testament  Apocrypha,  and  which  the 
Alexandrian  Jewish  philosophy  did  much  to  diffuse.  The  term  is 
adopted  by  the  Evangelist  to  designate  the  divine  Saviour,  the 
Revealer  of  God.  The  new  spiritual  life  through  the  believer’s 
union  with  Christ  and  fellowship  with  the  Father  involved  therein, 
is  the  condensed  expression  of  the  benefit  imparted  by  the  Gospel. 
The  apocalyptic  element,  although  distinctly  present  in  the  Johan- 
nine  teaching,  is  in  the  background.  The  reality  of  the  Incarna¬ 
tion  is  affirmed  as  a  cardinal  truth.1 

Christian  believers  in  common  with  the  Jews  received  the  Old 
Testament  writings  as  sacred  Scriptures.  The  Disciples  of  Christ 
were  protected  by  His  teaching  from  an  ensnaring  casuistry  and 
from  other  kinds  of  sophistry  in  the  interpretation  of  them.  Ex¬ 
clusion  from  the  synagogue  and  the  antipathy  of  the  Jews  operated 
to  keep  off  the  same  or  like  abuses  of  exegesis.  Yet  there  were 
traditional  ways  of  explaining  the  Old  Testament  which  the  early 
Christians  could  not  but  share.  The  rabbinical  habit  of  attaching 
double  meanings  to  words,  or  of  finding  in  them  a  mystic  sense  of 
some  sort,  was  not  without  its  influence  on  Christian  minds.  A 
natural  fruit  of  the  idea  of  verbal  inspiration  was  the  allegorical 
treatment  of  Old  Testament  passages,  or  fanciful  inferences  from 
the  orthography  or  sound  of  words.  The  Haggada  —  the  mass 
of  comment,  mingled  with  legend,  which  had  grown  up  about  the 
historical,  prophetic,  and  ethical  portions  of  the  Old  Testament 
Scriptures  —  contributed  something  to  the  stock  of  Christian 
beliefs.  In  the  Jewish  commentaries  there  was  a  union  of  two 
distinct  elements.  There  was  the  scholastic,  casuistic  element, 
and  there  was  the  fanciful  element.  These  amplified  and  embel- 

1  i  John  iv.  2,  3.  The  common  authorship  of  the  Gospel  and  the  Epistle  is 
beyond  reasonable  doubt. 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


27 


lished  the  writings  regarded  as  inspired.  There  was,  moreover, 
an  influence  from  the  Jewish  apocalypses,  —  for  example,  the 
book  of  Enoch,  which  underwent  modification  in  the  hands  of  a 
Christian  editor.  Other  books  of  this  class  were  the  Apocalypse 
of  Baruch,  the  Fourth  Book  of  Ezra,  and,  among  the  Hellenistic 
Jews,  the  Sibylline  Oracles.  Papias  repeats  a  prophecy  of  the 
wondrous  fruitfulness  of  the  vine  in  the  millennial  times,  when  it 
will  bear  colossal  grapes,  —  a  passage  taken  from  the  Apocalypse 
of  Baruch.  What  influence  was  exerted  on  Christian  thought  by 
speculations  in  this  literature 1  relative  to  the  preexistence  of  per¬ 
sons  and  things,  it  is  not  easy  to  define.2  The  Jews  generally 
conceived  of  the  Messiah  as  a  mere  man.  Trypho,  the  Jew,  in 
Justin  Martyr’s  Dialogue,  speaks  of  the  idea  of  the  Messiah’s  pre¬ 
existence  as  absurd.3 

It  was  natural  that  the  Hellenistic  Jews  should  be,  as  a  rule, 
less  rigid  and  more  conciliating  towards  the  Gentiles  than  their 
Palestinian  brethren.  To  some  extent  they  stood  as  mediators 
between  the  Jewish  religion  and  Gentile  thought.  This  was  true 
especially  of  that  Alexandrian  Judaism  of  which  Philo  is  the  fore¬ 
most  representative.  He  was  an  old  man  when  he  headed  a 
deputation  of  Jews  to  the  Emperor  Caligula  (a.d.  38  or  39). 
The  germs  of  his  system  were  of  an  earlier  date.  They  are  seen 
in  the  Wisdom  of  Solomon,  an  Alexandrian  production.  It  was 
at  Alexandria,  the  meeting-place  of  nations,  the  confluence  of 
streams  of  thought  from  all  directions,  that  this  eclectic  system, 
this  union  of  Biblical  teaching  with  Platonic  and  Stoic  tenets, 
took  its  rise.  Philo  was  a  believing  Jew,  without  any  thought  of 
perverting  the  Old  Testament,  but  aiming  to  extract  what  he  con¬ 
sidered  its  deeper  purport.  His  opinions  in  religion  and  ethics, 
nevertheless,  were  imbibed  from  the  Greek  philosophic  teachers. 
By  means  of  allegory,  he  undertook  to  read  into  the  Hebrew 
Scriptures  the  tenets  of  the  Academy  and  the  Porch.  Where  the 
Scripture  had  a  literal  meaning  that  was  unobjectionable,  it  might 
be  accepted,  but  even  in  such  a  case  there  lay  beneath  it  an 
occult,  sense  which  unveiled  itself  to  the  discerning.  In  Philo’s 
teaching  there  is  a  sharp  antithesis  between  God  and  the  world. 

1  Irenseus,  v.  33.  3;  Schiirer,  Gesch.  d.  Judisch.  Volhes,  etc.,  Vol.  II.  p.  644, 
c.  48. 

2  The  “Notion  of  Preexistence  ”  is  discussed  by  Harnack,  DG .,  I.  710  scl- 

See,  also,  Ewald,  Gesch.  d.  Volkes  Israel Vol.  V.  p.  73  sq.  3  c.  48. 


28 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


This  dualism  is  taken  up  from  Plato.  To  God  we  may  attach 
none  of  the  predicates  which  characterize  finite  things.  To  con¬ 
nect  with  Him  specific  qualities  is  to  divest  Him  of  His  supreme 
rank.  There  can  be  no  action  of  God  upon  the  world  of  matter 
save  through  intermediate  agents.  These  are  constituted  by  the 
Platonic  ideas  and  the  efficient  causes  of  the  Stoic  system,  — 
which  are,  also,  the  angels  of  the  Jewish  religion  and  the  demons 
of  the  Gentile  mythology.  These  intermediate  Powers  are  now 
spoken  of  as  personal,  and  again  plainly  fall  short  of  personality, 
being,  rather,  vivid  personifications.  The  conception  of  the 
Logos  has  a  central  place  in  Philo’s  system.  The  Logos  is  the 
Power  of  God,  or  the  divine  Reason,  endowed  with  energy,  ac¬ 
tion,  and  comprehending  in  itself  all  subordinate  Powers.  Now 
the  Logos  is  conceived  of  as  personal,  and  again,  to  exclude  the 
idea  of  a  separation  from  God,  it  is  represented  as  if  impersonal.1 
The  Logos  is  not  only  the  First-Born  of  God,  the  Archangel 
among  angels,  the  Viceroy  of  God  in  the  world,  but,  also,  repre¬ 
sents  the  world  before  God,  as  its  High  Priest,  its  Advocate  or 
Paraclete.  The  world  is  not  created  outright,  but  is  moulded 
out  of  matter.  Hence  evil  arises.  Souls  are  preexistent ;  while 
in  the  flesh  they  are  in  a  prison.  Therefore  the  end  to  be  sought 
is  to  break  away  from  sense,  to  destroy  its  control.  In  this  life 
the  highest  achievement  of  the  wise  and  virtuous  is  to  rise  in  a 
sort  of  ecstasy  to  the  immediate  vision  of  God.  This  direct 
access  to  the  divine  Essence  in  rapturous  contemplation,  which 
is  ascribed  to  the  sons  of  God,  is  something  altogether  above  the 
blessing  which  is  open  to  the  “sons  of  the  Logos.”  Their 
knowledge  of  God  is  in  symbols ;  their  intercourse  with  the  Su¬ 
preme  is  indirect.2  The  idea  of  an  incarnation  of  the  Logos 
clashes  with  the  fundamental  principles  of  Philo.3  Nor  is  there 
a  distinct  messianic  expectation.  Peace  will  be  the  inheritance  of 

1  Drummond  contends  that  all  ascriptions  of  personality  to  the  Logos  in 
Philo  are  figurative.  “  From  first  to  last,  the  Logos  is  the  Thought  of  God, 
dwelling  subjectively  in  the  infinite  Mind,  planted  out  and  made  objective  in 
the  universe.”  The  cosmos  is  “  a  tissue  of  rational  force,”  imaging  the  per¬ 
fections  of  God.  “  The  reason  of  man  is  the  same  rational  force  entering 
into  consciousness,”  etc.  Philo  Judaceus,  etc.,  Vol.  II.  p.  273. 

2  Conf  Ling.,  28.  Cf.  Somn.  I.  11,  SS.  Ab.  et  Cain ,  38,  Leg.  All,  III.  31. 

3  On  the  contrast  between  Philo’s  idea  of  the  Logos  and  the  Johannine 
conception,  see  Edersheim’s  Art.  “  Philo,”  Diet,  of  Christ.  Biogr.  IV.  379, 
380. 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


29 


those  who  are  established  in  virtue.  Especially  will  the  Israelites 
be  blessed  and  brought  together  in  their  own  land.  The  largest 
influence  of  the  Philonic  teaching  was,  not  on  the  Jew  or  the 
heathen,  but  on  Christian  schools  of  thought.1 

In  the  age  that  preceded  the  introduction  of  Christianity,  the 
disruption  of  nationalities,  the  increased  intercourse  of  peoples 
with  one  another,  and  other  kindred  causes,  had  rudely  shaken 
the  old  fabrics  of  mythological  religion.  The  rise  of  scientific 
and  philosophical  inquiry  had  dealt  a  mortal  blow  at  the  tradi¬ 
tional  systems  of  faith  and  worship.  In  the  writings  of  Cicero  we 
are  presented  incidentally  with  a  picture  of  the  skepticism  that 
prevailed  in  the  cultivated  classes.  There  was  a  growing  ten¬ 
dency  to  seek  for  mental  rest  through  schemes  of  syncretism,  by 
combining  ingredients  of  various  religions  and  by  adopting  rites 
drawn  from  the  most  diverse  quarters.  In  the  first  century  there 
were  strong  indications  of  a  revival  of  religious  feeling.  Augus¬ 
tus  had  undertaken  religious  reforms  which  were  not  wholly  inef¬ 
fectual.  There  were  attempts  to  breathe  fresh  life  into  the  ances¬ 
tral  forms  of  worship  and  to  save  an  almost  worn-out  creed  from 
extinction.  Quite  conspicuous  was  the  drift  towards  monotheism. 
Faith  in  a  future  life  and  in  personal  immortality  revived  from  its 
decay.  Serious  thinkers,  such  as  Plutarch,  whose  philosophy  was 
a  Platonic  eclecticism,  made  room  for  the  old  divinities  by  reduc¬ 
ing  them  to  the  rank  of  subordinate  beings.  Repulsive  tales  in 
the  legends  of  the  gods  Plutarch  connected  with  the  action  of 
inferior  demons,  in  which  deities  of  a  higher  order  had  no  part. 
He  labored  to  strike  out  a  middle  path  between  the  follies  of 
superstition  and  the  gloom  of  atheism.  Philosophers  began  to 
assume  an  office  not  unlike  that  of  pastors  or  confessors.  Cynics 
engaged,  on  the  streets  and  highways,  in  a  distinctively  missionary 
work,  addressing  their  counsels  and  rebukes  to  whomsoever  they 
chose  to  accost. 

Special  attention  is  required  to  the  influence  of  the  Greek  phi¬ 
losophy  on  Christian  doctrine.  Ethical  philosophy  owed  its  begin- 

1  Respecting  Philo  and  his  system,  the  older  works  of  Gfrorer  (2  vols. 
1831)  and  Dahne  (2  vols.  1834)  are  still  of  value.  In  the  copious  recent 
literature  on  the  subject,  among  the  authors  specially  worthy  of  attention  are 
Schiirer,  Gesch.  d.  yiidisch.  Volkes ,  P.  II.  pp.  831-886;  Zeller,  Die  Phil.  d. 
Griechen ,  Vol.  III.;  Drummond’s  Philo  yudecus,  or  the  y 'eivish  Alexandrian 
Phil.  (1888);  and  Siegfried,  Philo  von  Alexandria,  etc.  (1875). 


30 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


nings  to  Socrates.  He  turned  his  back  on  the  physics  and 
speculative  cosmology  with  which  previous  philosophers  had 
busied  themselves.  As  a  practical  reformer,  in  opposition  to  the 
undermining  process  of  the  Sophists,  he  felt  the  need  of  laying  a 
scientific  basis  for  morals.  By  his  method  of  cross-examination 
he  cleared  the  minds  of  his  auditors  of  confusion  and  elicited 
accurate  definitions.  In  his  ethical  doctrine  in  which  virtue  was 
identified  with  knowledge  or  insight,  he  introduced  a  partial  truth 
which  gave  rise  to  a  one-sided  intellectualism,  to  the  idea  of  an 
aristocracy  of  thinkers.  This  conception  produced  far-reaching 
consequences,  not  only  in  the  Greek  schools,  but  also  within  the 
pale  of  Christianity.  In  Plato’s  doctrine  of  ideas,  there  was 
given  to  concepts,  or  abstract  general  notions,  the  character  of 
supersensible  realities  —  the  abiding  realities  of  which  concrete, 
visible  things  in  the  world  around  us  —  things  that  appear  only  to 
vanish  —  somehow  partake.  Compared  with  the  ideas  the  world 
of  concrete  things  is  a  world  of  shadows.  The  ideas  are  coordi¬ 
nated  and  subordinated,  until  we  reach  in  the  upward  ascent  the 
supreme  idea  of  “  the  good.”  The  idea  of  the  good  is  the  cause 
both  of  being  and  of  cognition.  Sometimes  this  idea  is  identified 
with  God.  Yet  Plato  teaches  that  God  is  a  personal  intelligence, 
by  whom  the  world  is  fashioned  from  the  matter  which  is  eternal 
and  is  partly  intractable.  The  souls  of  men  enter  into  material 
habitations  from  a  preexistence,  either  conceived  of  as  actual  or 
mythically  imagined.  Redemption  is,  therefore,  physical  or,  one 
might  better  say,  metaphysical,  —  a  release  from  the  bondage  of 
sense.  It  is  reached  through  enlightenment,  wisdom  and  goodness 
being  regarded  as  inseparable.  In  the  Platonic  theory  of  ideas 
there  was  a  door  opened  for  Philosophy  to  pursue  afterwards  a 
Pantheistic  direction.  The  theory  of  the  relation  of  spirit  to  mat¬ 
ter  invited  to  endless  vagaries  of  speculation.  The  hypostasizing 
of  ideas,  through  a  tendency  Oriental  in  its  source,  or  through 
an  imagination  for  some  other  cause  lacking  in  sobriety,  might 
call  into  being  Gnostic  mythologies.  After  the  creative  epoch  of 
Plato  and  Aristotle,  Philosophy,  owing  partly  to  political  and 
social  changes,  took  a  decidedly  practical  turn.  Ethical  and  relig¬ 
ious  inquiries,  pertaining  to  the  individual  and  to  the  attaining  of 
tranquillity  of  spirit,  were  uppermost  in  the  two  principal  systems 
that  emerged.  Epicureanism  with  its  doctrine  of  a  cosmos  self- 
produced  from  primitive  atoms,  of  deities  unconcerned  about 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


31 


mundane  affairs,  and  of  a  morality  synonymous  with  prudent 
pleasure-seeking,  had  little  affinity  with  the  Gospel  and  little  influ¬ 
ence  upon  its  teachers.  Respecting  Stoicism  the  case  was  differ¬ 
ent.  The  metaphysic  of  Stoicism  was  borrowed  from  earlier 
systems,  especially  from  that  of  Heraclitus,  and  had  no  genetic 
relation  to  the  nobler  system  of  Stoical  ethics.  The  metaphysical 
theory  was  a  materialistic  Pantheism.  But  the  indwelling  force 
from  which  all  things  spring,  if  it  operates  blindly,  is  held  to 
operate  rationally.  The  universe  is  subject  to  one  all-ruling  law. 
The  world,  looked  at  as  an  organic  unity,  is  perfect.  Evil  is 
relative  ;  all  things  considered,  there  is  no  evil.  Zeus,  like  Provi¬ 
dence  and  Destiny,  is  another  name  for  the  totality  of  things. 
There  is  no  space  for  free  agency.  Logos,  the  divine  reason  or 
wisdom,  designates  the  power  that  pervades  the  universe,  yet  is 
corporeal  in  its  nature.  It  is  sometimes  styled,  according  to  the 
analogy  of  a  seed  stored  with  vital  energy,  the  Generative  or 
Seminal  Logos.  The  virtuous  man,  the  Sage,  is  he  who  lives 
according  to  nature,  either  his  own  nature  or  the  nature  of  the 
universe,  —  for  the  discrimination  is  not  always  made.  He  is 
calm  within,  murmurs  at  nothing  that  is  or  that  occurs,  implicitly 
obeys  reason,  uninfluenced  by  sensibility  or  emotion.  The  sys¬ 
tem  of  Zeno  and  Chrysippus  parted  with  much  of  its  rigor  in  the 
later  Stoicism  of  the  Roman  School.  In  Seneca,  Marcus  Aurelius, 
and  the  Greek  freedman  Epictetus,  there  is  a  recognition,  though 
not  uniform  and  persistent,  of  the  personality  of  God,  of  the  real¬ 
ity  of  the  soul  as  distinguished  from  the  body,  and  of  the  continu¬ 
ance  of  personal  life  after  death.  The  cosmopolitan  element  in 
Stoicism,  the  idea  of  mankind  as  a  single  community,  ripens  into 
the  conception  of  the  brotherhood  of  mankind,  and  of  God  as  a 
universal  Father.  In  Seneca,  precepts  enjoining  patience,  forgive¬ 
ness,  benevolence,  approximate  to  the  purity  and  elevation  of  the 
precepts  of  the  Gospel,  while  the  metaphysical  setting  remains 
quite  diverse.  The  sense  of  the  need  of  divine  help  is  a  new 
element  grafted  into  the  later  Stoicism.  It  is  among  the  New 
Platonists  that  Philosophy  assumes  the  most  decidedly  religious  * 
aspect.  Philo  was  a  forerunner  of  this  school,  Ammonius  Saccas 
its  reputed  founder ;  but  it  was  Plotinus  who  gave  it  a  systematic 
form.  God  was  conceived  of  as  the  Ineffable  One,  the  undifferen¬ 
tiated  Absolute.  He  is  incomprehensible.  He  is  utterly  separate 
from  the  world,  for  the  system  is  thoroughly  dualistic.  Asceti- 


32 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


cism  is  the  path  to  the  self-purification  of  the  soul.  The  highest 
attainment,  the  ideal  blessedness,  is  the  ecstatic  state  wherein  the 
soul  soars  to  the  intuition  and  embrace  of  the  Supreme  Being. 
The  enraptured  spirit  loses  the  sense  of  individuality,  and  lies,  so 
to  speak,  on  the  bosom  of  the  Infinite. 

The  influence  of  Greek  Philosophy  upon  the  early  Christian 
theology  is  too  obvious  to  be  questioned.  The  sciences  were  the 
creation  of  the  Greek  mind,  and  theology  forms  no  exception  to 
this  general  statement.  There  was  a  “  psychological  climate  ”  in 
which  theology  took  its  form.  There  was  an  environment  of 
thought  and  culture  from  the  influence  of  which  it  would  have 
been  impossible  for  the  theologians  of  the  Church  to  escape.  The 
point  of  most  importance  is  to  determine  the  nature  and  the  ex¬ 
tent  of  that  influence  by  which  they  were  necessarily  affected. 
That  the  form  of  enunciations  of  doctrine  was  affected  by  it,  the 
bare  inspection  of  the  ancient  oecumenical  creeds  is  sufficient  to 
show.  Newman  says  that  the  use  of  the  term  ‘  consubstantial  ’ 
by  the  Nicene  Council  is  “  the  one  instance  of  a  scientific  word 
having  been  introduced  into  the  creed  from  that  day  to  this.”1 
There  are  other  terms  in  the  creeds,  however,  such,  for  example, 
as  the  word  ‘  nature,’  which  imply  a  classification  of  our  mental 
faculties  that  does  not  conform  precisely  to  our  modern  views. 
Aside  from  the  phraseology  of  the  oecumenical  creeds,  the  patris¬ 
tic  teaching  is  stamped  with  the  traces  of  philosophical  ideas  that 
run  back  as  far  as  Plato  and  Aristotle.  It  has  been  alleged  by 
some  scholars  in  the  past,  and  the  assertion  has  been  renewed  by 
certain  recent  authors,  that  the  substance  as  well  as  the  form  of 
Christian  theology  was  essentially  modified  by  the  Greek  moulds 
into  which  Christian  truth  was  cast.  Views  tending  in  this  direc¬ 
tion  have  been  presented  of  late  by  two  learned  scholars,  Hatch 
and  Harnack.  The  question  for  the  student  to  determine  is, 
how  far  have  the  ancient  creeds,  their  authors  and  expounders, 
gone  beyond  an  intellectual  equivalent  of  the  New  Testament 
teaching?  What  is  to  be  referred  to  the  Gospel,  and  what  to 
Greek  philosophical  thought?  If  alloy  may  be  inwrought  from 
alien  sources,  it  is  the  task  of  Biblical  and  historical  scholarship  to 
ascertain  its  nature  and  limit.2 

1  Grammar  of  Assent,  p.  138. 

2  The  influence  of  the  Greek  Mysteries  on  Christian  usages  is  a  separate, 
although  kindred,  topic.  Here  the  point  of  chief  moment  is  the  disciplina 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


33 


arcani,  embracing  the  secrecy  observed  respecting  the  Baptismal  Confession, 
etc.,  and  the  exclusion  of  non-communicants  from  being  present  at  the  Sacra¬ 
ment.  Justin  describes  the  Eucharist  obviously  without  any  idea  of  conceal¬ 
ment  in  connection  with  it  (Apol.  I.  65  sq.).  From  about  A.D.  150,  with  the 
development  of  the  Catechumenate,  and  under  the  dangers  incident  to  perse¬ 
cution,  this  sacred  reserve  —  the  disciplina  arcani  —  arose  and  continued 
until  the  Church  emerged  to  a  position  of  safety.  But  from  Justin’s  time,  the 
Sacraments  began  to  be  looked  upon  after  the  analogy  of  the  Mysteries,  and 
the  effect  of  this  habit  of  thought  is  perceptible  both  upon  the  language 
respecting  them  and,  in  some  degree,  on  the  practices  connected  with  them. 
Yet  the  measure  of  this  effect  may  be  exaggerated.  On  this  subject  see 
Zezschwitz’s  Art.,  A rka n-Discipl i n ,  in  the  Real-Encycl.,  I.  p.  637,  Moller’s 
Kirchegesch .,  I.  pp.  281,  282.  The  subject  is  discussed  by  Hatch,  The  Influ¬ 
ence  of  Greek  Ideas ,  etc.  (Lect.  X.),  and  by' Harnack,  DG.,  I.  pp.  176  sq., 
et  al.  (See  the  Index  at  the  end  of  Vol.  III.)  See,  also,  Anrich,  Das  antike 
Mysterienwesen  in  seineni  Einfluss  auf  das  Christenthum  (1894). 


CHAPTER  II 


THE  ECCLESIASTICAL  WRITERS 

I.  The  Apostolic  Fathers.  —  This  is  an  inaccurate  title  given  to 
the  group  of  earliest  ecclesiastical  writers  after  the  Apostles.  The 
designation  is  owing  to  the  fact  that  they  were  supposed  to  have 
been  immediate  pupils  of  the  Apostles.  We  have  an  Epistle  of 
Clement ,  who  is  designated  in  the  tradition  as  the  first  Bishop  of 
Rome.  Whether  or  not  he  wore  this  title  exclusively,  or  was 
simply  the  leading  presbyter,  it  is  no  doubt  by  him  that  this 
letter  from  the  Church  of  Rome  to  the  Church  at  Corinth  was 
written.  Its  date  is  about  a.d.  96.  It  contains  moral  injunctions 
of  a  general  nature,  which  are  followed  by  special  exhortations 
occasioned  by  discord  in  the  Corinthian  Church,  which  was 
thought  to  pay  less  than  due  respect  to  its  presbyters.  The 
document  styled  the  Second  Epistle  of  Clement  is  a  Homily, 
which  not  unlikely  was  addressed,  either  orally  or  in  writing,  to 
the  same  church,  but  is  the  production  of  an  unknown  author, 
who  wrote  probably  as  early  as  a.d.  150.  The  first  distinct 
mention  of  it  is  by  Eusebius.  It  is  not  ascribed  to  Clement  by 
the  early  ecclesiastical  authors.  It  is  the  most  ancient  of  extant 
homilies.  Hennas ,  the  author  of  The  Shepherd '  wrote  his  book 
at  Rome.  Its  division  into  three  parts  is  from  a  later  hand 
than  the  author’s.  It  comprises  a  series  of  visions,  with  which 
are  connected  precepts,  warnings,  and  parables.  The  Church, 
which  communicates  the  revelations  made  to  Hermas,  is  personi¬ 
fied  as  an  aged  woman.  Afterwards,  in  the  guise  of  a  shepherd, 
the  “  angel  of  repentance  ”  appears,  by  whom  are  delivered  the 
teachings  in  the  closing  parts  of  the  book.  The  date  assigned  in 
the  ancient  tradition  (c.  140-155)  seems  late,  in  view  of  the  fact 
that  shortly  after  the  middle  of  the  second  century,  the  work  is 

known  to  have  been  in  circulation  in  the  churches  of  the  East  and 

* 


34 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


35 


West.  This  circumstance,  with  other  indications,  leads  Zahn  and 
some  other  critics  to  place  its  date  as  early  as  about  90-100.  It 
is  cited  by  Irenaeus  and  by  Tertullian,  and  Clement  of.  Alexandria 
was  familiar  with  it.  The  Epistle  with  which  the  name  of  Barna¬ 
bas  is  connected,  was  written,  not  by  the  companion  of  Paul,  but 
by  an  unknown  writer,  probably  an  Alexandrian.  It  is  strongly 
anti- Judaic  in  its  spirit.  There  are  widely  different  judgments  as 
to  its  date.  It  is  placed  by  some  as  early  as  a.d.  70 ;  by  others 
as  late  as  the  beginning  of  the  reign  of  Hadrian  (117-138).  The 
determination  of  the  question  is  partly  dependent  on  the  relation 
of  the  book  to  the  Didache ,  with  which  it  has  chapters  in  common. 
This  last  named  work,  the  Didache ,  or  Teaching  of  the  Twelve 
Apostles,  was  discovered  in  1873  by  Bryennios,  an  Eastern  prelate, 
but  was  not  published  until  1883.  It  is  one  of  the  most  interest¬ 
ing  literary  discoveries  of  recent  times.  It  consists  of  two  portions. 
It  is  a  church  manual  for  catechists  and  for  congregations.  The 
catechetical  part,  in  the  first  six  chapters,  presents  moral  precepts 
under  the  scheme  of  Two  Ways,  the  way  of  life,  and  the  way  of 
death.  The  second  part  contains  directions  pertaining  to  worship 
and  church  discipline,  with  statements  relating  to  Eschatology. 
The  first  portion  of  the  Didache ,  the  Two  Ways,  is  nearly  identi¬ 
cal  with  passages  in  the  Epistle  of  Barnabas,  and  in  the  Apostoli¬ 
cal  Canons,  a  work  composed  probably  as  early  as  the  beginning 
of  the  third  century ;  and  it  is  found,  also,  in  a  more  expanded 
form,  in  the  Apostolical  Constitutions.  The  Didache  is  assigned 
by  most  critics  to  a  time  not  later  than  the  beginning  of  the  second 
century.  As  to  its  relation  to  the  Epistle  of  Barnabas,  that  it  is 
not  dependent  on  the  Epistle  has  been  shown  by  Zahn  and  others. 
Harnack  has  considerable  support  in  the  opinion  that  both  books 
drew  from  a  common  source,  but  not  in  the  conclusion  that  the 
Didache  has  a  much  later  origin  (from  1 20  to  165) .  The  Epistles  of 
Ignatius ,  mainly  from  their  bearing  on  the  rise  of  Episcopacy,  have 
long  been  a  subject  of  discussion.  It  was  a  gain  when  at  last  the 
subject  of  controversy  was  narrowed  down  to  the  question  of  the 
genuineness  of  the  sevett  shorter  Greek  Epistles.  That  these  are 
the  productions  of  Ignatius,  Bishop  of  Antioch,  who  was  trans¬ 
ported  to  Rome  and  perished  under  Trajan,  has  been  rendered, 
to  say  the  least,  extremely  probable,  especially  since  the  publica¬ 
tion  of  the  works  of  Zahn  and  Lightfoot.  The  objections  made  to 
the  integrity  of  the  Epistles  can  hardly  be  made  good,  especially 


36 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


when  it  is  remembered  that  the  Episcopacy  for  which  Ignatius  is 
a  zealous  champion  is  not  sacerdotal  in  its  character,  but  is  com¬ 
mended  as  a  means  of  order  and  unity,  and  that  he  is  struggling 
to  secure  for  bishops  a  degree  of  authority  to  which,  it  would 
seem,  they  had  not  as  yet  attained.  The,  date  of  the  Ignatian 
Epistles,  according  to  Lightfoot,  is  about  no.  Harnack  is  pecul¬ 
iar  in  advancing  the  hypothesis  of  a  much  later  date  for  the 
martyrdom  of  the  author,  and  so  for  the  composition  of  his 
writings.  Polycarp ,  Bishop  of  Smyrna,  who  had  personally  known 
the  Apostle  John,  died  as  a  martyr  in  155  or  156.  The  Epistle 
to  the  Philippians ,  which  was  in  the  hands  of  Irenaeus,  who  had 
known  Polycarp,  is  unquestionably  genuine.  Papias ,  Bishop  of 
Hierapolis,  was  a  contemporary  of  Polycarp,  and  is  said  to  have 
been,  like  him,  a  pupil  of  John  the  Apostle.  But  this  statement  of 
Ireneeus  is  called  in  question,  possibly  with  truth,  by  Eusebius. 
The  Martyrdom  of  Polycarp  is  an  account  by  the  Church  of 
Smyrna  of  the  circumstances  of  the  death  of  their  aged  pastor  at 
the  hands  of  Roman  executioners.  It  is  enlarged  and  interpolated 
by  subsequent  additions,  but  there  is  good  reason  to  conclude 
that  it  is  essentially  genuine.  Papias  wrote,  in  five  books,  the 
Exposition  of  the  Oi'acles  of  the  Lord ,  of  which  we  have  preserved 
to  us  a  few  fragments,  one  of  which  is  the  highly  interesting  and 
valuable  statement  in  Eusebius  respecting  the  origin  of  the 
Gospels  of  Matthew  and  of  Mark.  Besides  comments  on  the 
teachings  of  Christ,  the  work  of  Papias  included  information 
respecting  the  Gospel  histories  which  he  had  gathered  from  oral 
sources. 

II.  The  Apologists.  —  Only  a  portion  of  the  writings  of  the 
authors  who  first  took  up  the  defence  of  Christianity  are  ex¬ 
tant.  These  writings  were  addressed  either  to  individuals,  or  to 
heathen  readers  in  general.  They  belong  mostly  to  the  age  of 
the  Antonines.  Quadratics  may  have  addressed  to  Hadrian  his 
apology,  which  is  lost.  The  work  addressed  to  Antoninus  Pius 
by  Aristides  has  lately  been  in  part  recovered.  We  have  it  in 
an  Armenian  translation,  also  in  a  Syrian  translation,  and  in  an 
imperfect  Greek  text.  Fragments  of  an  apologetic  work  of 
Melito ,  Bishop  of  Sardis,  addressed  to  Marcus  Aurelius,  are 
preserved  in  Eusebius.  A  writing  by  Claudius  Apollinaris , 
Bishop  of  Hierapolis,  addressed  to  the  same  Emperor,  and  a 
work  of  Miltiades,  a  rhetorician  of  Athens,  addressed  to  M. 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


37 


Aurelius  and  L.  Verus,  have  both  perished.  The  most  important 
of  the  writers  of  this  class  in  the  second  century  is  Justin  Martyr. 
He  was  a  native  of  Samaria,  and  was  born  about  a.d.  ioo.  He 
had  received  a  philosophical  training,  and  was  himself  a  philoso¬ 
pher  by  profession.  He  was  a  disciple  of  the  Platonic  school, 
but  was  influenced,  also,  by  the  ethical  ideas  of  the  Stoics. 
We  have  from  his  pen  two  Apologies,  a  longer  and  a  shorter, 
which,  however,  originally  formed  one  work,  and  the  Dialogue 
with  Trypho  (a  Jew).  The  Discourse  of  the  Greeks  and  The 
Exhortation  to  the  Greeks,  which  are  often  ascribed  to  Justin,  are 
by  later  writers.  The  Apologies  were  written  not  later  than  152 
and  not  earlier  than  138.  The  Dialogue  is  a  little  later  than  the 
Apologies.  Tatian  was  born  in  Assyria  and  was  perhaps  of 
Syrian  parentage,  but  was  educated  in  Greek  learning.  At  Rome 
he  came  into  connection  with  Justin.  He  wrote  a  Discourse  to  the 
Greeks,  about  152  or  153.  The  “  Diatesseron”  was  a  work  by  him, 
formed  by  combining  selections  from  the  Four  Gospels.  Besides 
the  Commentary  upon  the  work  by  Ephraim  of  Edessa  (who  died 
in  373),  we  have  two,  possibly  three,  very  free  translations  of  it  into 
other  languages.1  Whether  it  was  first  written  in  Greek  or  Syrian 
is  uncertain.  Tatian  became  a  Gnostic  and  the  leader  of  an 
ascetic  sect,  the  Encratites.  Theophilus ,  Bishop  of  Antioch, 
(168-c.  190)  wrote  an  Apology  addressed  to  Autolycus,  a  cultivated 
heathen.  It  is  directed  against  heathenism  in  its  popular  and 
philosophical  forms.  The  Epistle  to  Diognet,  by  an  unknown 
author,  written  about  the  end  of  the  second  century,  is  full  of  force 
and  eloquence,  but  exhibits  an  antagonism  to  the  Jewish  religion. 
One  of  the  most  cogent  of  the  early  defences  of  Christianity  is  the 
Octavius  of  Minucius  Felix,  which,  were  we  certain  of  its  early 
date,  would  be  distinguished  as  the  first  of  the  Latin  Apologies. 
Whether  it  was  composed  as  early  as  180,  or  as  late  as  the. 
middle  of  the  third  century,  is  still  a  litigated  point. 

III.  Irenceus  and  Hippolytus. — By  far  the  most  valuable 
writer,  as  a  source  for  the  History  of  Doctrine,  in  the  second 
century,  is  Irenaeus.  Born  in  Asia  Minor,  about  125  or  130, 
separated  by  only  a  single  link  from  the  Apostle  John,  whose 
pupil,  Polycarp,  he  had  seen  and  heard,  Irenaeus  became  first 
a  Presbyter  in  the  Church  at  Lyons,  as  the  colleague  of  the  aged 
Pothinus,  and  afterwards  succeeded  him  in  the  bishopric.  We 

1  See  Harnack,  Gesch.  d.  Altchristl.  Litt I.  2,  p.  495. 


33 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


have  the  record  of  at  least  one  visit,  and  probably  of  two  visits, 
made  by  him  to  Rome.  Such  was  his  standing  that  he  could 
address  an  admonitory  letter  to  Victor,  a  Roman  bishop.  His 
copious  work  Adversus  Hcereses  was  written  to  confute  the 
Gnostics,  about  the  year  180.  He  died  probably  in  202.  The 
wide  acquaintance  of  Irenseus  with  the  churches  East  and  West, 
the  sobriety  of  his  character,  and  his  unimpeached  reputation  for 
orthodoxy,  render  him  an  invaluable  witness,  both  respecting  the 
tenets  of  the  Gnostics  and  of  the  Christians  of  his  time.  He  was 
clear  in  his  perceptions,  practical,  and  averse  to  speculation.  The 
work  of  Irenseus  exists  only  in  a  literal  and  crude  Latin  transla¬ 
tion  ;  but  we  are  fortunately  in  possession  of  copious  extracts 
from  the  original  in  Hippolytus,  Eusebius,  and  Epiphanius. 
Besides  this  work  there  are  fragments,  including  the  Epistle  to 
Florinus,  which  contain  the  reminiscences  of  Polycarp  ;  but  the 
“  Pfaffian  ”  fragments  are  of  doubtful  genuineness.  The  longest 
of  them  is  certainly  spurious.  Hippolytus  was  a  pupil  of  Irenaeus. 
Although  he  was  a  celebrated  man  in  his  day,  our  information 
concerning  his  personal  history  is  scanty.  He  was  a  Presbyter  at 
Rome  when  Zephyrinus  and  Callistus  were  bishops,  the  first  of 
whom  acceded  to  office  in  199,  and  the  last  of  whom  died  in  222. 
Strenuous  in  maintaining  the  strictest  theory  as  to  Church  dis¬ 
cipline,  and  energetic  in  opposing  Patripassianism,  he  waged  a 
contest  against  these  bishops,  and  would  appear  to  have  been  a 
bishop  of  a  seceding  party  in  opposition  to  them.  His  Refutation  of 
all  Heresies ,  which  was  found  in  1842,  and  first  published  in  1851, 
under  the  title  of  Philosophumena ,  throws  much  light  on  the 
opinions  of  Gnostic  sects,  whose  errors  he  traces  to  the  heathen 
philosophers.  Missing  parts  of  the  work  probably  treated  of 
Chaldean  and  other  Oriental  opinions. 

IV.  The  Latin  Writers ,  Tertullian  and  Cyprian.  —  Tertullian 
was  the  first  to  make  the  Latin  language  a  vehicle  for  theology. 
He  was  a  Presbyter  at  Carthage,  was  born  about  160,  and  died 
about  220.  At  school,  in  addition  to  other  branches,  he  learned 
Greek.  He  was  trained  to  be  an  advocate,  and  one  peculiarity  of 
his  writings  is  the  frequent  occurrence  in  them  of  legal  ideas  and 
phraseology.  Although  not  unacquainted  with  philosophy,  he 
inveighs  against  the  philosophers,  going  so  far  as  to  denounce 
Plato  as  the  condimentarius  of  all  heretics.  Acute  and  fertile  in 
thought,  he  infuses  into  his  writings  a  vehemence  which  belongs  to 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


39 


his  temperament.  Yet  his  genius  shines  through  the  cloud  of  ex¬ 
aggeration.  An  enthusiast  by  nature,  he  at  length  became  an 
avowed  Montanist.  His  numerous  works  are  upon  a  variety  of 
themes.  They  embrace  polemical  and  apologetic  works,  against 
parties  without  and  within  the  Church,  and  discussions  of  an  ascetic 
and  ecclesiastical  cast.  Cyprian,  Bishop  of  Carthage,  who  died  as 
a  martyr  in  258,  was  largely  influenced  by  the  writings  of  Tertul- 
lian.  His  own  literary  activity  was  mainly  upon  topics  relating  to 
Church  government  and  discipline. 

V.  The  Alexandrians.  —  It  was  at  Alexandria,  the  seat  of  all 
science,  that  philosophical  theology  first  acquired  a  firm  footing. 
The  union  of  philosophy  and  theology,  of  which  we  see  the  begin¬ 
nings  in  the  Apologists,  was  there  consummated.  Catechetical 
instruction,  when  cultivated  and  inquisitive  heathen  converts  were 
to  be  taught,  necessarily  assumed  a  new  form.  The  school  for 
catechumens  developed  itself  into  a  school  for  the  training  of  the 
clergy.  The  Alexandrian  teachers  met  the  educated  heathen  on 
their  own  ground.  Instead  of  pouring  out  invectives,  after  the 
manner  of  Tertullian,  against  the  Greek  philosophers,  they  recog¬ 
nized  in  the  teachings  of  the  Greek  sages  materials  which  Christian 
teachers  might  accept  and  assimilate.  Attainments  in  knowledge 
which  were  above  the  capacity  of  all  believers  might  be  open  at 
least  to  a  part.  The  scholarship  of  the  Church  was  at  Alexandria. 
Pantaenus,  the  first  teacher,  who  began  his  work  not  far  from  185, 
had  been  an  adherent  of  the  Stoic  school,  while  mingling  in  his 
creed  elements  of  Platonic  doctrine.  His  writings  have  perished. 
In  his  pupil,  Clement,  who  succeeded  him,  and  who  taught — with 
an  interval  of  absence  on  account  of  the  Severian  persecution  — 
from  about  19 1  until  he  retired  in  202,  the  peculiarities  of  the 
Alexandrian  type  of  theology  are  distinctly  marked.  He  was  born 
in  Greece,  and  had  studied  philosophy  in  different  lands  and  under 
various  masters.  In  Christianity  he  found  the  satisfaction  which 
he  had  elsewhere  sought  in  vain.  In  his  writings,  his  large  acquisi¬ 
tions  of  learning  and  the  fertility  of  his  genius,  as  well  as  his  lack  of 
system,  are  apparent.  In  his  Discourse  to  the  Greeks,  the  superi¬ 
ority  of  the  Gospel  to  the  heathen  systems  of  worship  and  of 
thought  is  insisted  on,  with  a  generous  recognition,  however,  of 
the  truth  to  be  found  in  their  poets  and  philosophers.  The  Pce- 
dagogos  was  designed  for  the  ethical  training  of  converts,  as  a 
preparation  for  gaining  an  insight  into  the  deeper  mysteries  of  the 


40 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


Christian  teaching.  Here  Clement  intermingles  ideas  drawn  from 
the  Stoical  morals.  The  crowning  treatise  of  Clement  is  the 
Stromata ,  or  Patchwork — for  the  term  denoted  a  coverlet  made 
of  patches.  The  author  expatiates  on  the  truths  of  Christianity, 
without  care  for  systematic  arrangement.  In  a  briefer  Essay, 
“Who  is  the  Rich  Man  that  is  Saved?”  Clement  undertakes  to 
evince  that  not  the  possession  of  riches,  but  an  inordinate  attach¬ 
ment  to  them,  debars  from  the  kingdom.  At  the  same  time,  in 
this  Essay  the  ascetic  feeling  as  concerns  earthly  good  and  the 
pleasures  of  sense  finds  expression. 

Origen,  who  in  genius  stands  on  a  level  with  Augustine,  and  is 
outstripped  in  power  and  achievements  by  none  of  the  Fathers, 
was  a  pupil  of  Clement.  Born  in  185  of  Christian  parents,  he 
received  a  classical  as  well  as  a  Christian  education,  and  suc¬ 
ceeded  Clement  as  a  teacher,  —  a  post  from  which  he  was  driven 
by  the  Bishop  of  Alexandria,  Demetrius.  In  consequence  of  suffer¬ 
ings  inflicted  on  him  in  the  Decian  persecution,  he  died  at  Caesa¬ 
rea  in  Cappadocia,  in  253.  He  was  initiated  into  the  study  of 
philosophy  by  Ammonius  Saccas,  the  Neo-platonist ;  but  he  made 
himself  conversant  with  the  tenets  of  all  the  philosophical  schools. 
The  writings  of  this  great  scholar  are- exceedingly  various.  His 
Hexapla ,  a  comparison  of  the  text  of  the  Septuagint  with  the 
Hebrew  text  of  the  Old  Testament  and  with  other  Greek  versions, 
was  the  fruit  of  twenty-seven  years  of  labor.  His  commentaries, 
of  which  those  on  Matthew  and  John  are  specially  valuable,  as 
exhibiting  his  theological  opinions,  extend  over  nearly  all  the  Script¬ 
ures.  The  treatise  De  Principiis ,  or  concerning  First  Truths,  is 
the  earliest  systematic  treatise  on  doctrinal  theology.  We  possess 
it  only  in  the  very  free  translation  of  Rufinus,  who  omits,  also, 
parts  of  the  original.  In  his  later  days  Origen  composed  his 
Reply  to  Celsus ,  a  masterly  defence  of  Christianity  against  the 
ablest  of  its  assailants,  and  a  work  which  demonstrates,  if  proof 
were  required,  that  the  speculations  on  doctrine  which  characterize 
his  numerous  treatises  had  not  the  effect  to  loosen  his  hold  on  the 
historical  facts  and  essential  verities  of  the  Gospel. 


CHAPTER  III 


DOCTRINE  IN  THE  APOSTOLIC  FATHERS 

With  the  earliest  Christian  teachers  authorship  was  not  a  habit 
or  a  profession.  Like  the  Apostles  themselves,  they  wrote,  as  a 
rule,  to  meet  some  exigency.  “  When  the  heavens  might  part 
asunder  at  any  moment,  and  reveal  the  final  doom,”  “  there  was 
no  care  for  literary  distinction.”  1  The  Apostolic  Fathers  are  inter¬ 
mediate  between  the  New  Testament  writers  and  distinctively  theo¬ 
logical  authors.  We  miss  in  them  the  depth  and  power  of  the 
canonical  writers.  Like  these  they  have  in  view  practical  ends. 
The  light  which  they  throw  on  the  contemporary  doctrinal  beliefs 
is  incidental.  And  respecting  the  early  ecclesiastical  writings,  it 
must  be  borne  in  mind  that  such  of  them  as  survive  are  the  relics 
of  a  larger  number  that  have  perished.  What  Grote  says  of  the 
classical  literature  of  Greece  is  applicable  to  the  literature  of  the 
Early  Church  :  “We  possess  only  what  has  drifted  ashore  from  the 
wreck  of  a  stranded  vessel.”2  Yet  it  is  true  of  at  least  a  portion 
of  the  early  ecclesiastical  writings  that  remain,  that  their  preserva¬ 
tion  is  due  to  the  special  value  that  was  attributed  to  them.  Hence 
there  is  no  occasion  to  speak  slightingly  of  the  aid  which  they  lend 
us  in  ascertaining  the  opinions  and  the  modes  of  thought  prevalent 
in  the  sub-apostolic  age.  The  theory,  which  was  advocated  by 
Baur,  of  a  radical  antagonism  in  this  period  between  Petrine  and 
Pauline  disciples,  is  now  so  generally  given  up  that  it  requires  no 
special  confutation.  Clement  speaks  of  Peter  and  Paul  as  “  the 
good  apostles  ”  who  merit  equal  honor.3  In  like  manner,  the  two 
Apostolic  leaders  are  placed  in  conjunction  by  Ignatius.4  Polycarp 
makes  mention  of  the  wisdom  of  “the  blessed  and  glorious  Paul.”  •’ 

1  Lightfoot,  The  Apostolic  Fathers ,  p.  I. 

2  History  of  Greece ,  Vol.  I.  Preface. 

3  i  Cor.  5.  4  Rom.  4.  5  Phil.  3. 

4i 


42 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


It  may  be  added  that  Hegesippus,  a  Christian  writer  of  Jewish 
birth,  in  a  fragment  of  his  book,  which  was  written  about  the 
middle  of  the  second  century,  refers  with  approval  to  Clement’s 
Epistle  to  the  Corinthians.  He  is  a  witness,  not  for,  but  against 
the  Tubingen  hypothesis.  The  theory  of  two  opposing  parties, 
amalgamated  later  by  methods  of  compromise,  it  is  no  exaggera¬ 
tion  to  say  “  can  be  upheld  only  by  trampling  under  foot  all  the 
best  authenticated  testimony.”  1  A  glance  at  the  career  and  the 
teachings  of  a  single  man,  Irenaeus,  is  of  itself  sufficient  to  dis¬ 
prove  it. 

The  Apostolic  Fathers  wrote  before  the  writings  of  the  Apostles 
had  been  collected  into  a  canon.  Although,  with  a  single  excep¬ 
tion,2  passages  obviously  taken  from  them  are  hot  introduced  by 
the  formula  usually  prefixed  to  quotations  from  the  Old  Testament, 
they  are  nevertheless  treated  as  authoritative.  The  Apostolic 
Fathers  make  no  claim  to  stand  on  a  level  with  the  Apostles. 
While  they  contain  references  to  pre-Christian  apocryphal  writings, 
we  find  in  them  no  distinct  references  to  a  New  Testament 
Apocrypha. 

The  Apostolic  Fathers  abound  in  allusions  to  the  doctrine  of 
free  forgiveness  through  the  grace  of  God  in  the  Gospel.  “  And 
so  we,”  writes  Clement,  “  having  been  called  through  His  will  in 
Christ  Jesus,  are  not  justified  through  ourselves  or  through  our 
own  wisdom  or  understanding  or  piety,  or  works  which  we  wrought 
in  holiness  of  heart,  but  through  faith,  whereby  the  Almighty  God 
justified  all  men  that  have  been  from  the  beginning.” 3  This 
passage  is  emphatically  Pauline  in  its  purport.  Yet,  at  the 
same  time,  we  meet  in  Clement,  and  in  the  Apostolic  Fathers 
generally,  a  strain  of  thought  which  may  be  styled  legalism,  or 
—  to  borrow  a  word  from  the  German  —  “moralism.”  Not  only 
is  the  Pauline  doctrine  of  justification  seldom  brought  out  in 
so  clear  and  positive  a  form  as  in  the  passage  just  quoted ;  there 
is  besides  an  emphasis  laid  upon  right  conduct,  and  upon  works 
of  obedience,  which  is  somewhat  in  contrast  with  the  manner 
of  St.  Paul  when  he  is  defining  the  method  of  justification.  Even 
Clement,  in  the  place  mentioned  above,  goes  on  immediately 
to  insist  on  the  importance  of  good  works.  Abraham  was  found 
faithful  in  that  he  “  rendered  obedience.” 4  It  is  not  merely  that 

3  I  Cor.  32. 

4  Clement,  1  Cor.  10. 


1  Lightfoot,  The  Apostol.  Fathers ,  p.  9. 

2  Barnabas,  4. 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


43 


“Faith”  and  “  Love  ”  are  often  conjoined  —  which  is  especially 
common  in  Ignatius.  There  is  a  lack  of  a  distinct  perception  of 
the  genetic  relation  of  faith  as  the  root  of  Christian  virtues. 
Hermas  makes  continence  the  daughter  of  faith,  simplicity  to 
spring  from  continence,  guilelessness  from  simplicity,  etc.1  In 
the  Didache ,  we  read  of  “  the  knowledge  and  faith  and  immortality 
made  known  ”  to  us  through  Christ.2  Allusions  to  the  cross  of 
Christ,  to  His  death  for  our  sins,  to  salvation  through  Him,  are 
quite  frequent.  Yet  more  often  than  is  the  custom  of  writers 
thoroughly  imbued  with  the  Pauline  spirit,  the  relation  of  the 
death  of  Christ  to  the  procuring  for  us  of  the  means  of  repentance 
and  to  opening  the  way  to  a  new  obedience  is  dwelt  upon.  A 
large  space  is  given  to  the  preceptive  parts  of  the  New  Testament. 
This  type  of  evangelical  legalism  becomes  still  more  marked  much 
later  in  the  century  when  the  nova  lex 3  of  the  new  dispensation  is 
held  up  to  view  as  being,  along  with  better  promises,  its  defining 
characteristic. 

This  peculiarity  of  the  early  Christian  writers,  it  is  worth  while 
to  reiterate,  springs  from  no  conscious  dissatisfaction  with  the 
teaching  of  St.  Paul.  It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  Apostle’s 
sharply  defined  and  resolute  exclusion  of  the  doctrine  of  salvation 
by  works  of  obedience  was  part  and  parcel  of  his  warfare  against 
a  Pharisaic  theology.  That  contest  with  Judaism  and  Judaizing 
Christianity  had  now  passed  by.  Whether  salvation  is  through 
faith  or  on  the  ground  of  obedience  was  no  more  “a  burning 
question.”  The  special  occasion  for  an  energetic  uprising  to  with¬ 
stand  a  narrow  and  intolerant  party,  on  this  subject,  no  more 
existed.  It  must  be  borne  in  mind,  moreover,  that  the  Apostle 
Paul  himself,  when  he  speaks  of  the  judgment,  makes  it  turn  upon 
“deeds  done,”  upon  the  personal  righteousness  or  unrighteousness 
of  the  individual.  The  creed  of  Trent  quotes  against  the  Prot¬ 
estant  doctrine  the  Apostle’s  anticipation  of  the  “  reward,”  the 
“crown  of  righteousness,”  which  the  Lord,  “the  righteous  Judge 
will  give  ”  him.4  In  short,  St.  Paul  himself  uses  the  terms  of  the 
Jewish  “scheme  of  debt  and  works,”  —  terms,  however,  which  are 
capable  of  an  interpretation  consistent  with  his  teaching  elsewhere 
on  the  adequacy  and  the  life-giving  power  of  faith.5  It  is  the 

1  M.  II.  8.  3  Tertull.,  De  Prcescr.  13. 

2  Didache ,  10.  4  Sess.  VI.  Decree  on  Justification,  CXVI. 

5  On  this  topic,  see  the  remarks  of  Stevens,  The  Pauline  1'heology ,  p.  359  scp 


44 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


characteristic  of  the  earliest  Christian  writers  that  they  bring  to¬ 
gether  the  teachings  of  the  different  Apostles.  They  may  be  said, 
not  so  much  to  strike  an  average,  as  rather  to  combine  indiscrim¬ 
inately  the  various  passages  in  the  Apostles  which  relate  to  pardon 
and  the  new  life.  There  is  a  failure,  notwithstanding  the  Christian 
fervor  of  these  authors,  to  penetrate  to  the  inmost  meaning  and 
the  mutual  connection  of  these  various  forms  of  representation. 

We  find,  especially  in  Hernias,  traces  of  an  ascetic  drift,  which 
is  in  a  large  measure  the  result  of  the  earnest  reaction  of  the 
Christian  mind  against  the  immorality,  in  particular  the  unchastity, 
so  prevalent  in  heathen  society.  This  ascetic  tendency  is  con¬ 
joined  with  the  legalism  just  adverted  to.  It  was  a  question 
whether  repentance  would  be  of  any  avail  in  the  case  of  grievous 
offences  committed  after  baptism,  the  rite  which  was  understood 
to  bring  with  it  the  remission  of  past  sins.  The  solution  in  Hernias 
is,  that  a  single  lapse  of  this  character  does  not  shut  the  door  upon 
the  delinquent ;  but  this  is  the  limit  beyond  which  the  spirit  of 
leniency  in  the  Church  will  not  go.1  Second  marriages  are  not 
forbidden,  but  abstinence  from  a  second  marriage  brings  “  exceed¬ 
ing  honor  and  great  glory  before  the  Lord.”  2 3  Christian  believers 
fall  into  different  classes  as  to  their  degree  of  holiness,  some  being 
on  a  higher,  and  others  on  a  lower  plane.  The  distinction  between 
a  more  exalted  and  an  inferior  type  of  Christian  virtue  is  even 
more  definite  in  the  Didache.2, 

If  in  the  Apostolic  Fathers  we  miss  a  firm  grasp  of  the  New 
Testament  teaching  on  the  subject  of  Justification,  no  such  defect 
appears  in  their  conception  of  the  doctrine  of  the  person  of  Christ. 
Inexact  as  their  phraseology  naturally  is  in  comparison  with  what 
is  observed  in  authors  of  a  later  age,  it  is  evident,  as  well  in  their 
habitual  tone  as  in  particular  passages,  that  in  their  minds  Christ 
is  dissociated  from  the  category  of  creatures.  Clement  styles  Him 
“the  sceptre  of  the  majesty  of  God,”  who  “came  not  in  the  pomp 
of  arrogance  or  of  pride  though  He  might  have  done  so,  but  in 
lowliness  of  mind.”4  “To  whom,”  he  exclaims  in  another  place, 
“be  the  glory  and  the  majesty  for  ever  and  ever.”5  In  Igna- 

1  L.  III.  Sim.  7.  “Thinkest  thou  that  the  sins  of  those  that  repent  are  for¬ 
given  forthwith?  Certainly  not;  but  the  person  who  repents  must  torture  his 
own  soul,”  etc. 

a  M.  IV.  4. 

3  VI.  2.  Cf.  Clem.  II.  Cor.  VII. 


4  1  Cor.  16. 

5  1  Cor.  20. 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


45 


tius,  it  is  a  central  thought  that  through  Christ  man  is  delivered 
from  the  dominion  of  death  and  made  a  partaker  of  incorruption.1 
This  is  through  the  Incarnation,  and  the  Resurrection  following 
upon  the  death  on  the  Cross.  The  divine  life  in  Christ  is  in 
veritable  humanity.  Docetism,  the  idea  that  the  human  Christ  is 
a  phantom,  is  combated.  The  mystical  tendency  of  Ignatius 
appears  in  his  conception  of  the  connection  of  the  bishop  with 
his  presbyters  about  him  with  the  like  relation  of  the  incarnate 
Christ  to  the  Apostles.2  Ignatius  asserts  the  preexistence  of 
Christ.  He  “  was  with  the  Father  before  the  world,  and  ap¬ 
peared  at  the  end  of  time.”3  Christ  is  “  His  Word  (Logos) 
that  proceeded  from  silence  ”  ;  that  is,  in  becoming  incarnate. 
“ There  is  only  one  physician,”  Ignatius  writes,  "of  flesh  and 
of  spirit,  generate  and  ungenerate,  God  in  man4  .  .  .  Son  of 
Mary  and  Son  of  God.”5  The  eternity  of  Christ  is  explicitly 
affirmed:  “ Await  Him  that  is  above  every  season,  the  Eternal, 
the  Invisible,  who  became  visible  for  our  sake,  the  Impalpable, 
the  Impassible,  who  suffered  for  our  sake.”6  Ignatius  gives  to 
Christ  repeatedly  the  name  “  God,”  not  as  if  He  were  God 
absolutely,  yet  implying  proper  divinity.7  He  is  “  the  Son  of  the 
Father,”  through  whom  the  patriarchs  and  the  whole  Church  enter 
in.8  Polycarp  declares  that  “  every  one  who  shall  not  confess  that 
Jesus  Christ  is  come  in  the  flesh,  is  anti-christ,”  —  a  passage  cor¬ 
responding  to  the  statement  of  John  (i  John  iv.  3),  from  whom  it 
is  probably  quoted.9  Barnabas  refers  to  the  suffering  of  Christ, 
though  He  was  the  Lord  of  the  whole  world,  and  interprets  the 
words,  “Let  us  make  man  in  our  own  image”  (Gen.  i.  26),  as 
spoken  to  Him.10  Hermas  says  of  “  the  Son  of  God  ”  that  He 
“  is  older  than  all  His  creation,  so  that  He  became  the  Father’s 
adviser  in  His  creation.”  11  “The  Holy  Preexistent  Spirit,”  it  is 
said,  “which  created  the  whole  creation  God  made  to  dwell  in 
flesh  that  He  desired.”12  Whether  the  “  Spirit  ”  is  here  a  designa- 

1  oapdapala. 

2  See  Lightfoot,  Apostol.  Fathers ,  P.  II.  Vol.  I.  pp.  39,  359,  sq.  Cf.  Gore, 
The  Christian  Ministry ,  p.  302.  See,  also,  Von  der  Goltz,  Ignatius  v. 
Antioch ,  als  Christ 1.  Theolog.  Gebh.  u.  Harnack’s  Text.  u.  Untersuch.,  XII.  3. 

3  Magn.  6.  6  Polyc.  3.  9  Ep.  Polyc.  7. 

4  kv  vapid.  7  Ephes.  Introduct.,  1 8.  10  Barnab.  6. 

6  Ephes.  7.  8  Philad.  9.  11  Simil.  IX.  12. 

12  Simil.  V.  6.  Cf.  IX.  1.  The  passage  is  obscure,  partly  because  “  the  ser¬ 
vant  ”  in  the  Parable  is  said  (6)  to  be  “  the  Son  of  God,”  while  another,  who 


46 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


tion  of  the  preexistent  Logos  —  a  usage  of  which  there  are  not 
wanting  other  examples  —  or,  as  some  think,  Hernias  considered 
the  Holy  Spirit  to  be  one  and  the  same  with  the  preexistent  Christ, 
there  is  at  least  here  a  clear  assertion  of  the  Saviour’s  preexistence 
and  divinity.1  The  personality  and  distinct  office  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  are  clearly  set  forth  in  Ignatius.2  The  Father,  the  Son,  and 
the  Holy  Spirit  are  brought  into  close  connection.3  Clement 
writes  :  “  Have  we  not  one  God,  and  one  Christ,  and  one  Spirit 
of  Grace  that  was  shed  upon  us?  ”4 

That  Baptism  brings  the  remission  of  sins  and  the  purifying 
grace  of  the  Spirit  is  frequently  said  or  implied  in  the  earliest 
writers.  In  one  place  Ignatius  ascribes  to  the  death  of  Christ  a 
purifying  effect  upon  the  baptismal  water.5  “  We  go  down  into 
the  water,”  says  Barnabas,  “ laden  with  sins  and  filth  and  rise  from 
it,  bearing  fruit  in  the  heart,  resting  our  fear  and  hope  on  Jesus  in 
the  spirit.”  6  As  to  the  formula  used  in  baptism,  it  is  thought  to 
have  been,  at  the  outset,  in  the  Apostolic  age,  the  shorter  form  in 
the  name  of  Christ.7  It  is  remarkable,  however,  that  while  in  the 
Didache ,  baptism  “into  the  name  of  the  Lord”  is  said  to  be 
required  for  admission  to  the  Eucharist,8  we  have  in  the  directions 
for  administering  the  rite  the  injunction  to  baptize  “into  the  name 
of  the  Father,  and  of  the  Son,  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost.”9  This 
shows  that  the  shorter  form  does  not  necessitate  the  inference  that 
the  longer  formula  was  not  in  use. 

is  called  His  “ beloved  son”  and  “heir”  (2),  is  also  spoken  of.  As  to  the 
use  of  the  term  “  Spirit  ”  (7 rvev/jia)  to  denote  the  Logos,  see  Lightfoot’s  note, 
Clem .  Rom.  IX.  4.  On  the  other  view,  that  Hernias  does  not,  in  V.  6  and 
IX.  4,  use  this  term  as  the  equivalent  of  Logos,  see  (against  Zahn)  Gebhardt 
and  Harnack,  Patrum  Apostolics,  Opera,  Fascic.  III.  p.  150  sq.  See,  also, 
Harnack,  DG.  I.  p.  160  —  who  considers  Hermas  an  Adoptionist  —  and 
Prof.  McGiffert’s  Ed.  of  Eusebius ,  p.  135.  Dorner  has  a  full  discussion  of 
the  topic,  presenting  the  opposite  interpretation,  Gesch.  d.  Lehre  v.  d.  Person 
Christi ,  I.  p.  205  sq.  But  Dorner  has  a  different  reading  of  Simil.  v.  6  from 
that  adopted  (with  Lightfoot,  Apostol.  Fathers')  above. 

1  On  the  passage  in' the  Didache  (X.  6)  —  “  Flosanna  to  the  God  of  David  ” 
—  and  the  question  of  the  reading  (de$  or  v'ic£),  see  Schaff,  The  Teaching  of 
the  Twelve  Apostles ,  p.  197. 

2  See  Ephes.  9.  4  I.  Cor.  46.  6  Barnabas,  11. 

3  Philad.  Introduct.  5  Ephes.  XVIII.  5. 

7  See  Acts  xix.  5,  1  Cor.  i.  13;  cf.  Neander,  Planting  and  Training  of  the 
Church ,  p.  29 ;  Harnack,  DG.  I.  p.  68,  n.  3. 

3  IX.  5. 


9  VII.  1. 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


47 


The  Lord’s  Supper,  as  we  infer  from  the  passages  bearing  on  the 
subject  in  Ignatius,  was  still  connected  with  the  Agape,  or  Love- 
Feast,  as  it  was  in  the  days  of  the  Apostles.  If  it  had  become 
dissevered  when  Pliny  wrote  his  letter  to  Trajan,  the  separation 
may,  perhaps,  have  been  a  local  usage,  which,  it  may  be,  was 
adopted  by  the  Christians  in  consequence  of  the  rigid  policy 
introduced  by  that  Emperor.  We  cannot  expect  in  the  Apostolic 
Fathers  clearly  defined  views  respecting  the  import  of  the  Lord’s 
Supper.  Ignatius  speaks  of  the  Eucharist  as  “  the  flesh  of  our 
Saviour,  Jesus  Christ,  which  flesh  suffered  for  our  sins,”1  and 
styles  the  “  one  bread  ”  “  the  medicine  of  immortality  and  the 
antidote  that  we  should  not  die,”2  etc.  We  cannot  be  at  all  sure 
that  he  is  not  using  symbolical  language.3  The  bread  and  the 
wine  were  gifts  of  Christian  believers  for  this  sacred  use,  and,  in 
connection  with  the  prayers,  were  styled  an  offering ;  but  with  no 
other  significance.  From  the  prayer  of  thanksgiving,  the  rite  was 
styled  the  Eucharist.  From  the  Didache  the  character  of  the 
Eucharistic  prayers  can  be  learned.  Thanks  are  given  to  God 
for  the  food  and  drink,  the  natural  gifts  of  God  to  men,  as  well  as 
for  the  “  spiritual  food  and  drink  ”  bestowed  on  believers  through 
Christ.4 

The  Second  Coming  of  Christ  is  looked  upon  as  an  event  not 
remote.  In  one  of  the  parables  of  Hermas,  it  is  to  follow  the 
building  of  “the  Tower,”  and  “the  tower,”  it  is  said,  “will  soon 
be  built.”  The  post-communion  prayer  in  the  Didache  ends  with 
“  Maranatha  ”  —  “The  Lord  Cometh.”5  In  Barnabas,  the  tem¬ 
poral  reign  of  Christ  for  a  thousand  years  is  expected  to  follow 
His  advent.  Papias,  who  cherishes  the  same  idea,  presented  a 
fantastic  picture  of  millennial  bliss  and  comfort.0 

1  Smyrn.  VII.  2  Ephes.  XX. 

3  See  Philad.  V.,  Trail.  VIII.  Cf.  Lightfoot  (ad  Smyrn.  VII.).  A  more 

literal  interpretation  is  given  by  Thomasius,  DG.  I.  p.  421. 

4  c.  X.  5  c.  X.  6  (as  in  1  Cor.  xvi.  22).  Cf.  Didache,  c.  XVI. 

6  See  above,  infra,  p.  88. 


CHAPTER  IV 


THE  JUDAIC  SEPARATIST  PARTIES  —  THE  GNOSTIC  SECTS  —  MARCION 

Before  Jerusalem  was  invested  by  the  army  of  Titus,  there  had 
been  a  flight  of  Jewish  Christians  to  places  on  the  east  of  the  Jor¬ 
dan  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  Dead  Sea.  There  a  portion  of 
these  fugitives  were  brought  in  contact  with  the  Essenes,  and 
probably  adopted  some  of  their  tenets  and  customs.  When  the 
rites  of  Jewish  worship  were  excluded  from  Jerusalem  by  Hadrian 
(a.d.  135),  there  were  Jewish  Christians  —  a  part  of  those  who 
had  come  back  to  Jerusalem  from  their  temporary  exile  —  who 
joined  with  the  Christians  of  Gentile  origin,  thus  giving  up  the 
Mosaic  ceremonies.  But  there  were  Jewish  Christians  who  were 
not  ready  to  part  with  the  ceremonies  prescribed  in  the  ancient 
Law.  These  constituted  the  heretical  class  who  were  called  Ebi- 
onites.  The  name  was  not  derived,  as  Tertullian  and  other 
Fathers  conjectured,  from  an  imaginary  founder  named  “Ebion.” 
The  term  was  from  the  Hebrew,  and  was  a  name  early  adopted 
by  Jewish  disciples,  signifying  “the  poor,”  in  contrast  with  their 
Jewish  countrymen,  who  were  higher  in  rank  and  more  favored 
of  fortune.  Justin  Martyr  distinguishes  between  different  types 
of  these  sectaries,  and  Origen  makes  a  like  distinction.1  The 
milder  class,  Justin  tells  us,  do  not  turn  their  backs  on  their  Gen¬ 
tile  brethren  who  reject  circumcision  and  the  Jewish  Sabbaths. 
The  more  rigid  class  endeavor  to  compel  Gentile  believers  to 
conform  to  the  Old  Testament  rites.2  It  is  not  said  by  Justin  that 
any  sharp  line  of  division  separates  these  different  phases  of  Judaic 
Christianity.  They  all  belong  to  one  group.  The  name  1  Ebi- 
onites  ’  and  the  name  ‘  Nazarenes  ’  were  applied  by  the  Fathers 
indiscriminately  to  Jewish  Christians,  although  the  differences 
among  them  are  recognized.  The  less  rigid  Ebionites  made  use 

1  C.  Celsum,  V.  lxi.  2  Dial.,  c.  46. 


48 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


49 


of  a  Hebrew  Gospel  of  Matthew.  They  accepted  the  miraculous 
birth  of  Christ.  They  held  that  He  was  conceived  of  the  Spirit 
of  God.  They  made  no  objection  to  suffering  and  death  as 
connected  with  the  Messiah.  To  the  baptism  of  Jesus  they 
attached  great  consequence,  as  the  epoch  when  He  was  furnished 
with  qualifications  for  His  messianic  work.  Unlike  the  more  in¬ 
tolerant  fraction  of  the  Ebionites,  they  did  not  deny  that  Paul 
was  a  true  Apostle.  This  class  of  Moderates  are  described  by 
Jerome,  for  in  his  time  they  were  still  in  being.  They  are  com¬ 
monly  called,  he  says,  Nazarenes.  He  sketches  their  tenets,  and 
adds  that  in  trying  to  be  at  once  Jews  and  Christians,  they  fail  of 
being  either.1  The  rigid,  Pharasaic  Ebionites  insisted  that  cir¬ 
cumcision  is  necessary  to  salvation,  that  the  Mosaic  ceremonial 
ordinances  are  still  binding  on  Christians.  They  rejected  and 
hated  the  Apostle  Paul.  They  denied  the  miraculous  conception 
of  Jesus,  and  regarded  Him  as  literally  the  son  of  Joseph.  They 
looked  upon  Him  as  a  Jew,  whose  distinction  from  others  lay  in 
His  fulfilment  of  the  Law.  His  legal  piety  caused  Him  to  be  se¬ 
lected  as  Messiah  by  God ;  but  of  this  He,  in  His  humility,  was 
not  conscious  until  His  baptism.  Then  the  Spirit  was  given  to 
Him,  and  He  began  His  messianic  work.  It  was  the  work  of  a 
prophet  and  teacher.  He  wrought  miracles  and  enlarged  the  law 
by  precepts  of  greater  strictness.  This  class  or  school  of  Ebionites 
was  reluctant  to  think  of  the  Christ  as  subject  to  suffering  and 
death,  and  preferred  to  dwell  on  His  laws  and  teachings,  and  on 
His  future  advent  in  regal  splendor.  Then  He  would  establish  for 
Himself  and  His  followers,  especially  for  the  pious  Jews,  a  millen¬ 
nial  kingdom  of  glory  and  blessedness. 

With  these  intolerant  Ebionites,  Justin  will  have  no  fellowship. 
He  denies  to  them  the  hope  of  salvation.  As  to  the  treatment 
proper  for  the  more  charitable  branch  of  the  party,  he  would 
regard  them  as  brethren,  although,  he  tells  us,  some  other  Chris¬ 
tians  were  not  disposed  to  do  so.  At  a  later  day  —  exactly  when 
it  is  impossible  to  determine  —  even  the  moderate  class  were  also 
banished  from  Christian  fellowship.  It  is  not  difficult  to  recognize 
in  these  last,  whatever  modifications  may  have  come  in,  the  suc¬ 
cessors  of  the  Jewish  Christians  of  the  Apostolic  age  who,  while 
observing  the  ritual  for  themselves,  were  not  inimical  to  the  Apos- 

1  Dum  volunt  Judsei  esse  et  Christiani,  nec  Judsei  sunt  nec  Christiani.  Ep, 
cxii.,  13  (ad  Augustin.). 

E 


50 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


tie  to  the  Gentiles  ;  while  the  rigid  Ebionites  are  the  successors  of 
the  Judaizers  who  denied  his  claim  to  be  an  Apostle  and  pro¬ 
nounced  the  ban  on  such  disciples  as  failed  to  conform  to  the 
ceremonial  parts  of  the  Law. 

There  was  a  third  type  of  Ebionitism  which  may  be  denominated 
Essenian  Ebionitism.  It  embraced  distinctive  features  of  Ebionite 
doctrine,  with  an  admixture  of  Gnostic  elements.  Its  nascent  ten¬ 
dencies  are  clearly  seen  in  the  heretical  party  in  the  church  at 
Colosse,  which  is  described  in  St.  Paul’s  Epistle  to  the  Colossians.1 
How  far  what  are  called  the  Essenian  features  of  the  system  sprung 
out  of  the  intercourse  of  Jewish  Christians  with  the  Essenian  sect, 
or  were  due  to  indirect  agencies  of  a  kindred  nature,  it  is  not  easy 
to  decide.  One  faction  of  the  Jewish  Christian  party,  of  which 
the  peculiarities  are  foreshadowed  in  the  Colossian  heresy,  bears 
the  name  of  Elkesaits.  This  title  is  derived  from  Elkesai,  which  is 
not  the  name  of  a  man,  but  of  a  book  prized  by  the  sect.  The 
characteristics  of  the  Essenian  Ebionitism  appear  in  a  curious  work 
of  a  much  later  date,  the  Clementine  romance,  or  the  Pseudo- 
Clementine  writings,  —  the  Homilies  and  the  Recognitions,2  the 
date  of  which  is  probably  near  the  beginning  of  the  third  century. 
They  contain  a  story  of  one  Clement,  a  fictitious  creation  who  is 
identified  with  Clement  of  Rome  and  figures  as  the  author  of  the 
narrative.  Clement,  after  long  wanderings,  meets  his.  lost  parents 
and  brothers.  The  tale  is  merely  a  vehicle  for  conveying  to  the 
reader  a  set  of  religious  ideas.  It  is  related  of  this  Clement  that 
he  was  converted  by  Peter,  and  listened  to  disputations  of  Peter 
with  Simon  Magus,  the  champion  of  Gnostic  heresies.  Among  the 
main  Ebionite  elements  in  the  Clementine  romance  is  the  essential 
identity  of  Christianity  with  Judaism.  Christ  is  the  restorer  of  the 
pure,  primitive  religion  of  Moses.  Christ  is  the  last  of  a  series  of 
eight  prophets,  —  Abraham,  Moses,  and  Christ  being  the  chief,  —  by 
all  of  whom  the  same  truth  has  been  inculcated.  There  are  traces 
of  hostility  to  the  Apostle  Paul,  and  Peter  is  represented  as  the 
founder  of  the  Roman  Church.  On  the  other  hand,  there  is  a  dis¬ 
position  to  find  an  original  religion  to  which  all  religions  are  trace¬ 
able  ;  there  is  dualism  in  the  idea  of  matter  and  respecting  the 

1  Lightfoot’s  instructive  Dissertations  on  “  The  Colossian  Heresy  ”  and  on 
“  The  Essenes,”  are  prefixed  to  his  “  Commentary  on  the  Colossians,”  and  are 
printed  also  in  his  Dissertations  on  the  Apostolic  Age  (1892). 

2  The  Epitome,  the  third  book  in  the  series,  is  a  briefer  writing  of  later  date. 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


51 

nature  of  sin,  a  repudiation  of  sacrifices,  and  no  expectation  of  an 
earthly  theocratic  kingdom. 

In  the  absence  of  authentic  information,  various  hypotheses  have 
been  broached  respecting  the  origin  of  the  Clementine  writings. 
Baur  conceived  that  he  had  found  in  these  productions  a  warrant 
for  his  theory  of  the  prevalence  of  a  Judaic,  anti- Pauline  theology 
in  the  Church  of  the  second  century.  That  no  support  can  be 
derived  from  them  for  such  a  theory  is  now  generally  perceived. 
Gieseler’s  conjecture  was  that  a  Roman  Christian  whose  mind  was 
distracted  by  doubts  and  queries  sought  and  found  in  the  East, 
among  the  Elkesaits,  religious  ideas  which  were  in  accord  with  his 
predilections,  and  which  he  incorporated  with  opinions  having  a 
different  source  and  character.1  The  most  plausible  suggestion 
that  can  be  offered  at  present  to  account  for  the  phenomena  is  that 
old  Elkesait  or  other  Jewish  Christian  writings  were,  to  some 
extent,  taken  up  and  read  with  interest  by  Christians ;  that  they 
were  worked  over  in  order  to  render  them  more  edifying  and  to 
eliminate  from  them  heretical  ideas,  and  that  such  were  the  sources 
of  the  Homilies  and  Recognitions.  Not  unlikely  reflections  cast 
upon  the  Apostle  Paul  were  not  wholly  excluded,  but  traces  of 
them  were  undesignedly  left  to  stand.2  As  Harnack  remarks,  “  the 
Pseudo-Clementines  contribute  nothing  to  our  knowledge  of  the 
origin  of  the  Catholic  Church  and  doctrine.”  Even  as  concerns 
the  knowledge  of  the  tendencies  and  inner  history  of  the  syncre- 
tistic  Jewish  Christianity,  they  “can  be  used  only  with  great 
caution.”3 

The  Ebionites  would  have  robbed  Christianity  of  its  universal 
character  and  world-wide  destination,  and  have  narrowed  it  down 
to  the  limits  of  Judaism.  The  Gnostics,  had  they  gained  the 
day,  would  have  accomplished  just  the  reverse.  Gnosticism 
would  have  swept  away  the  barriers  by  which  Christianity,  as 
the  one  absolute  religion,  fenced  off  the  manifold  systems  of 
mythology  and  philosophy,  and  the  multiform  cults  which  existed 
among  the  heathen.  Gnosticism  may  be  described  as  an  eclectic 
philosophy  in  which  heathen,  Jewish,  and  Christian  elements  are 

1  Gieseler,  Kirchengesch.,  I.  iii.  2,  §  58. 

2  See  Harnack’s  Discussion,  DG.,  Vol.  I.,  p.  264  sq. 

3  Ibid.  p.  268.  “  We  are  precluded  from  assigning  to  the  syncretistic 

Jewish  Christianity,  on  the  ground  of  the  Pseudo-Clementines,  a  place  in  the 
history  of  the  origin  of  the  Catholic  Church  and  its  doctrine.”  Ibid.  p.  270. 


52 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


commingled  in  various  proportions,  giving  rise  to  a  diversity 
of  systems ;  the  ideas  of  these  systems  being  incorporated  in 
mythical  or  mythological  forms.  When  we  speak  of  Gnosticism 
as  eclectic  and  as  a  philosophy,  it  is  not  to  be  understood  that  its 
origin  was  due  either  to  a  skeptical  or  a  merely  speculative  turn 
of  mind.  The  Gnostic  leaders  were  for  the  most  part  deeply 
interested,  from  practical  motives,  in  the  problems  of  religion, 
and  laid  stress  not  by  any  means  exclusively  on  theoretical  tenets, 
but  even  more  on  ritual  forms,  ascetic  practices,  and  other  matters 
pertaining  to  conduct.  In  the  second  century,  the  flourishing 
period  of  the  Gnostic  systems,  while,  as  we  learn  from  the 
explicit  testimony  of  the  Fathers,  the  mass  of  Christians  belonged 
to  the  humbler  and  uneducated  classes,  there  were  found  culti¬ 
vated  men  who  could  not  fail  to  be  inquisitive  as  to  the  founda¬ 
tions  of  the  Christian  teaching,  and  its  relations  to  the  origin  and 
constitution  of  things.  Moreover,  the  all-prevailing  drift  in  the 
direction  of  syncretism,  the  disposition  to  amalgamate  mythology 
with  philosophy,  to  explain,  and  to  assimilate,  as  far  as  might  be, 
Oriental  religious  systems  and  cults,  created  a  ferment  on  the 
borders  of  the  Christian  societies  everywhere.  The  authors  of 
the  different  speculative  and  theosophic  systems,  the  fruit  of  this 
passion  for  a  universal  solvent  of  religious  and  of  philosophical 
problems,  would  be  glad  to  discover  a  warrant  for  their  ideas 
in  an  authoritative  revelation.  The  canon  of  the  New  Testament 
had  not  yet  arisen.  The  Old  Testament  was  an  authoritative 
book  in  the  churches.  Already  the  Judaic  propaganda,  through 
the  Alexandrian  Jewish  school,  had  fused  by  means  of  allegorical 
interpretations  the  facts  and  doctrines  of  the  Old  Testament  with 
the  teachings  of  Platonism  and  Stoicism.  It  had  given  currency 
to  certain  theological  conceptions;  to  the  dualistic  idea  of  an 
absolute  Deity,  separated  at  the  widest  remove  from  the  world 
of  matter ;  to  the  idea  of  a  chain  of  intermediate  beings ;  to  the 
idea  of  the  Logos,  as  a  second  deity,  a  demiurge,  stamping  by 
its  energy  the  divine  ideas  upon  the  world ;  to  the  idea  of  an 
escape  from  matter  as  the  true  deliverance  of  the  soul.  The  very 
earliest  Gnostic  developments  were  from  the  Judaic  side.  Yet 
the  ideas  and  tendencies  just  referred  to,  being  common  to  the 
metamorphosed  Judaism  of  Philo  and  to  the  Hellenic  schools 
from  which  he  borrowed,  we  cannot  attribute  the  Gnostic  systems 
generally  to  the  Judaic  source.  The  historical  circumstances 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


53 


of  their  rise  would  not  justify  us  in  this  conclusion.  The  various 
religions  of  Syria  and  Asia  Minor  furnished  copious  materials, 
as  well  as  leaders,  to  the  Gnostical  movement.  The  dualistic 
religions  of  Persia  and  India  made  their  contribution,  although  it 
seems  probable  that  it  was  through  an  Hellenic  appropriation 
of  such  elements  that  they  found  their  way  into  the  Gnostic 
creations. 

There  were  two  main  points  to  which  Gnostic  thought  was 
directed.  The  one  was  the  absolute  Being.  The  other  was  the 
origin  of  Evil.  How  did  man  become  entangled  in  the  fetters  of 
matter,  and  how  should  he  be  delivered?  The  Gnostics  were 
necessarily  led  to  the  consideration  of  cosmogony,  and  they  were 
in  quest  of  a  satisfactory  theodicy.  With  all  their  errors  and 
vagaries,  they  aspired  after  a  wide  view,  after  a  theology  in  a 
broad  and  comprehensive  sense,  and  after  a  philosophy  of  history. 
Underlying  the  creations  of  phantasy  which  puzzle  and  bewilder 
us  —  the  “ aeons”  emanating  in  a  well-nigh  endless  succession,  to 
span  the  gulf  between  the  transcendent  Deity  and  brute  matter  — 
there  were  earnest  convictions.  It  was  probably  the  practical 
side  of  the  Gnostic  teaching,  the  pastoral,  so  to  speak,  rather  than 
the  didactic  office  which  the  Gnostic  heresiarchs  assumed,  that 
gave  them  influence  over  the  body  of  their  adherents  to  whom 
the  region  of  abstruse  speculation  was  a  terra  incognita. 

The  two  prominent  and  prevailing  peculiarities  of  the  Gnostic 
systems  are  the  following: 

First,  the  Gnostics  laid  claim  to  a  deeper  insight  (yvcuo-is),  or 
knowledge  of  divine  things  than  was  open  to  common  believers. 
This  Gnosis  stood  in  contrast  with  Pistis,  or  the  faith  of  Christians 
generally.  On  this  higher  plane,  the  Gnostic  alone  stood.  Dor- 
ner  has  styled  Gnosticism  “the  Pelagianism  of  the  intellect.” 
In  essence  it  was  identical  with  the  postulate  of  the  Greek  phi¬ 
losophers,  who  asserted  the  existence  of  a  race  of  intellectual 
patricians.  There  was  an  esoteric  Christianity  —  something  more 
profound  than  the  popular  creed. 

Second,  the  Gnostic  systems  agree  in  this  fundamental  dogma, 
that  the  Creator  of  the  world  is  not  the  Supreme  God,  but  is  either 
a  subordinate,  but  not  hostile,  instrument,  or  an  inferior,  antago¬ 
nistic  being.  Hence  the  God  of  the  Old  Testament  is  not  the  God 
who  sends  the  Redeemer  into  the  world,  but  is  another  being, 
the  Demiurge. 


54 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


In  conformity  with  the  requirements  of  their  whole  theory 
respecting  the  Absolute  and  the  identification  of  matter  with  evil, 
the  person  of  the  Redeemer  was  conceived  of  in  a  docetic  man¬ 
ner  ;  the  divine  was  not  really  incarnate,  but  in  temporary  juxta¬ 
position  with  humanity. 

It  is  not  strange  that  in  the  hands  of  Gnostic  teachers  utterances 
of  the  Apostle  Paul  were  tortured  into  props  of  a  theory  quite 
alien  to  his  teachings.  He  had  written  of  a  “  wisdom  ”  (oro^fa) 
which  was  reserved  for  “  the  perfect,”  in  contrast  with  the  rudi¬ 
mentary  knowledge  imparted  by  him  to  the  immature,1  and  of  a 
knowledge  (Gnosis)  which  was  possessed  in  different  measures 
by  Christian  disciples ;  although  with  the  Apostle  it  was  an  insight 
and  a  practical  perception  from  which  none  were  debarred  on 
account  of  a  deficiency  in  natural  endowments.  So  the  language 
of  the  Apostle  respecting  the  law  and  the  Old  Testament  system, 
as  temporary  stepping-stones  to  something  higher,  was  equally 
capable  of  being  construed  as  a  warrant  for  a  radical  disconnec¬ 
tion  of  the  Old  from  the  New.  The  loose  and  flexible  method  of 
allegory  which  was  applied  by  Christian  as  well  as  Judaic  teachers 
to  the  ancient  Scriptures  opened  the  door  for  the  application  by 
Gnostic  theologians  of  a  like  method  to  the  facts  and  doctrines  of 
the  Gospel.  The  habit  of  looking  for  symbols  everywhere,  of 
regarding  historical  occurrences  as  having  their  value  in  some 
occult  spiritual  suggestion,  invited  speculative  minds  to  transmute 
the  realities  of  the  Evangelical  history  into  materials  for  their  own 
use.  We  know  that  not  a  few  of  the  Gnostics  busied  themselves 
with  the  interpretation  of  the  Apostolic  writings,  and  that  some  of 
them  wrote  commentaries  upon  them.  It  was  not,  as  a  rule, 
by  casting  aside  these  writings,  but  by  devices  of  exegesis,  that 
they  sought  for  a  support  for  their  doctrines.2  Sometimes,  it  is 
true,  the  documents  were  altered,  and  romances  in  the  shape  of 
apocryphal  gospels  and  other  apocryphal  writings  of  a  kindred 
character  were  composed  for  the  diffusion  of  their  ideas.  They 
made  much  of  unwritten  traditions  of  Apostolic  teaching. 

Of  the  forms  and  the  extent  of  the  influence  of  the  Gnostics, 
we  covet  more  information  than  we  possess.  They  were  found 
within  the  churches.  Sometimes  they  formed  a  circle  or  sodality, 
without  separation  from  the  societies  of  Christian  believers. 

1  i  Cor.  ii.  6. 

'2  See  Iren.,  AIv.  Har.  III.  ii.  2;  Tertullian,  De  Prcescr.  liter.,  c.  14. 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


55 


Often,  and  more  and  more,  they  were  organized  into  distinct 
bodies,  having  a  cult  and  discipline  of  their  own.  Generally  the 
rites  and  symbolical  ceremonies,  and  the  rules  of  conduct  which 
were  enjoined,  formed  conspicuous  features  of  Gnosticism  in  its 
various  ramifications. 

Traces  of  Gnosticism  in  its  nascent  forms  are  observable  in  the 
New  Testament, — in  Simon  Magus,  who  afterwards  figures  prom¬ 
inently  in  history  and  legend ;  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Colossians, 
where  the  adversaries  of  Paul  are  represented  as  ascetic,  and  as 
holding  to  a  God  who  reveals  himself  in  ranks  of  angels,  one 
above  another ;  in  the  Epistles  to  Timothy,  in  a  class  who  busy 
themselves  with  Angelology ;  in  the  First  Epistle  of  John,  in  those 
who  denied  the  reality  of  the  incarnation ;  in  the  Nicolaitans 
of  the  Apocalypse,  and  in  the  false  teachers  referred  to  in  the 
Epistle  of  Jude  who  fell  into  an  antinomian  immorality. 

Gieseler  gives  a  geographical  classification  of  Gnostic  systems, 
putting  in  the  first  class,  the  Alexandrian,  in  the  second,  the 
Syrian,  and  in  a  third  class,  the  Gnostics  of  Asia  Minor  and 
Rome,  —  including  the  system  of  Marcion.  In  the  Syrian  systems, 
the  dualism  was  more  pronounced.  In  the  religions  of  the  world, 
as  in  human  nature,  in  the  room  of  contrasts  of  higher  and  lower, 
there  were  held  to  be  absolute  contrarieties.  Baur’s  classification 
is  based  on  the  views  taken  respectively  by  the  several  classes 
of  Gnostic  systems,  of  the  three  principal  forms  of  religion, 
Christianity,  Judaism,  and  Heathenism.  In  the  first  class,  these 
three  forms  of  religion  are  conjoined ;  in  the  second  class  are 
placed  the  systems  which  separate  Christianity  from  both  of  the 
other  religions ;  and  in  the  third,  those  which  identify  Christianity 
and  Judaism,  and  oppose  them  both  to  Heathenism.  Under  this 
third  class,  Baur  places  the  doctrine  of  the  Pseudo-Clementine 
writings,  which  we  have  placed  under  the  head  of  Ebionitism. 
Niedner’s  classification  is  not  essentially  diverse  from  that  of 
Baur.  Niedner  also  has  a  second  classification  based  on  the 
more  friendly  or  more  hostile  relations  of  pistis  and  gnosis  in 
the  several  systems.  Neander  makes  two  leading  divisions,  the 
criterion  being  the  relation  of  the  Gnostic  systems  to  the  religion 
of  the  Old  Testament.  The  ground  of  the  distinction  is  a  milder 
or  a  sharper  dualism.  The  principle  of  the  world  and  the  state 
of  the  world  are  conceived  of  either  as  only  making  up  a  lower 
sphere,  or  as  wholly  foreign  and  adverse  to  the  Supreme  Being. 


5<5 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 

I 


There  was  supposed  to  be  either  a  continuous  development 
running  through  pre-Christian  and  Christian  times,  or  there  was 
the  denial  of  any  such  unity.  There  was  either  a  connecting, 
or  a  sundering,  of  the  Old  and  the  New  Testament  The  first 
division  embraces  the  Alexandrian  systems ;  the  second,  the 
Syrian.  But  in  the  second  division,  the  opponents  of  Judaism 
may,  or  may  not,  exhibit  a  leaning  towards  Heathenism. 

Simon  Magus  is  without  doubt  an  historical  person  whose 
existence  and  influence  are  attested  not  only  in  the  book  of  Acts 
(viii.  9  sq.),  but  also  by  Justin  Martyr,  who  was  himself  a  native 
of  Samaria.1  Simon  was  considered  by  his  adherents  “  that  power 
of  God  which  is  great,”2  and  was  reverenced  as  the  incarna¬ 
tion  of  the  godhead.  His  companion,  who  wandered  about  with 
him,  Helena,  was  styled  Ennoia,  the  first  thought,  the  creative 
intelligence  of  the  Deity.  Simon  mingled  in  his  teachings 
astrology  and  the  arts  of  magic.  An  influential  follower  was 
Menander,  and  another  Samaritan  leader  of  like  character  and 
pretensions  was  Dositheus. 

Cerinthus  may  be  styled  an  Ebionitic  Gnostic,  or  a  Gnostical 
Ebionite.  He  derived  his  ideas  from  Alexandria,  but  came  to 
Asia  Minor,  where  he  was  a  contemporary  of  the  Apostle  John. 
He  represented  the  Supreme  God  as  utterly  separate  from  any 
immediate  relation  to  matter.  Between  them  are  ranks  of  angels, 
one  of  whom,  in  a  lower  grade,  was  the  maker  of  the  world  and 
the  God  of  the  Jews.  Cerinthus  rejected  the  miraculous  con¬ 
ception,  and  held  that  with  Jesus  at  His  baptism  a  heavenly  spirit 
was  united,  but  forsook  Him  at  the  beginning  of  His  sufferings. 
The  Roman  writer,  Caius,  imputes  to  him  a  sensuous  Chiliastic 
belief,  but  this  statement  may  be  a  mistaken  inference.  Hippoly- 
tus  says  that  Cerinthus  held  to  circumcision  and  the  Sabbath. 

We  begin  now  with  the  Syrian  Gnosis.  Saturninus  lived  proba¬ 
bly  in  the  time  of  Hadrian.  In  his  system  the  highest  God,  the 
“  Father  Unknown,”  creates  a  realm  of  spirits  in  descending 
gradations,  the  spirits  of  the  seven  planets  being  on  the  lowest 
stage.  By  them,  or  by  the  Demiurge  at  their  head,  the  visible 
world  was  made,  and  also  man.  The  Demiurge  is  the  God  of 
the  Jews.  A  divine  spark  has  been  imparted  by  the  Supreme  to 
the  race  of  men.  Over  the  realm  of  matter,  or  the  Hyle,  Satan 
presides.  The  human  race  is  composed  of  two  classes  diamet- 

1  Apol.  i,  56.  2  Dial.  c.  Tryp.  120. 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


57 


rically  opposed.  The  good  God  sends  an  JEon,  Nous,  who 
appears  in  an  unreal  body  as  a  Saviour  to  deliver  the  spiritual 
class,  not  only  from  Satan,  but  also  from  the  Demiurge  and  the 
associated  planetary  spirits.  The  means  of  deliverance  embrace 
abstinence  from  marriage  and  other  forms  of  asceticism. 

Allied  in  their  conceptions  to  the  Saturninians  were  the  Ophites, 
in  their  various  branches,  —  the  Naassenes,  the  Peratae,  and 
others.  The  Ophites  paid  reverence  to  the  serpent,  as  the 
symbol  of  hidden,  divine  wisdom.  The  maker  of  the  world  and 
God  of  the  Jews  is  Ialdabaoth, —  Product  of  Chaos,  —  a  narrow, 
evil  being,  full  of  pride,  but  forced  to  carry  out  the  plan  of 
the  Supreme,  as  an  instrument  To  his  psychical  Christ  the 
Heavenly  Christ  descends  from  the  pleroma,  and,  when  the  for¬ 
mer  is  crucified,  places  himself  at  the  right  hand  of  Ialdabaoth, 
where,  invisible  to  the  latter,  he  guides  all  spiritual  life  upward 
from  its  debasing  mixture  with  matter  into  the  pleroma.  The 
Cainites,  who  were  a  branch  of  the  Ophite  class,  revered  the  bad 
characters  of  the  Old  Testament  as  the  really  good,  belonging  to 
the  pneumatic  natures. 

Of  the  Alexandrian  type  of  Gnosticism,  Basilides,  who,  like 
Saturninus,  lived  under  Hadrian,  was  the  first  of  the  noted 
leaders.  There  are  two  diverse  expositions  of  his  system,  that 
given  by  Irenseus,  and  that  of  Hippolytus,  which  is  drawn  from 
different  sources.  According  to  the  latter,  Basilides  placed  at 
the  head  of  all  things  the  Being  who  is  pure  nothing;  i.e., 
nothing  concrete,  the  Ineffable  One.  From  him  comes  the  world- 
seed,  the  seminal,  chaotic  universe,  containing  in  it  potentially  all 
beings,  higher  and  lower,  almost  numberless,  in  their  distinct 
spheres.  The  Archon,  who  is  the  God  of  the  Jews,  is  not  hostile 
to  the  Supreme,  but  unconsciously  fulfils  his  designs.  The  problem 
is  for  all  beings  to  develop  their  nature  and  to  rise  each  to  its 
appropriate  place.  It  is  a  scheme  of  self-evolution.  I  he  pneu¬ 
matic  natures,  such  of  them  as  require  purification,  —  which  is 
the  third  class  of  these  natures,  —  are  delivered  through  the 
Gospel,  which  brings  in  a  new  period  and  redemptive  influence 
from  the  most  exalted  sources.  Jesus  is  the  Soter,  a  compound 
“  microcosmic  ”  being ;  and  at  His  death,  the  several  parts  of  His 
being  rise  each  to  its  proper  home.  Basilides  taught  a  moderate 
asceticism  in  which  marriage  was  not  forbidden,  although  celibacy 
was  commended.  He  made  use  of  the  canonical  Gospels,  and. 


58 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


according  to  Hippolytus,  of  the  Gospel  of  John  among  them; 
also,  of  the  Epistles  of  Paul.  The  foremost  of  his  pupils  was 
his  son,  Isodorus.  Later  disciples,  the  Pseudo-Basilidians,  became 
degenerate  and  forsook  the  better  tenets  of  their  master. 

Valentinus  was  probably  an  Alexandrian  Jew  who  was  con¬ 
verted  to  Christianity.  He  taught  in  Alexandria  and  Rome  about 
a.d.  140.  His  system  has  clearer  logical  and  philosophical  ideas 
than  any  other  of  the  Gnostic  schemes,  and  discovers  throughout 
the  influence  of  Platonism.  It  is  the  Gnostic  system  which  was 
most  widely  diffused  and  is  best  known  to  us.  There  is  an  unfold¬ 
ing  of  the  Absolute  into  finite  forms  of  being  in  long  succession, 
and  in  two  spheres,  a  higher  realm,  the  scene  of  a  theogony,  and 
a  lower  realm,  the  sphere  of  sense.  This  lower  world  is  the  prov¬ 
ince  of  the  Demiurge,  but  the  human  beings  formed  by  him  have 
in  them  pneumatic  elements.  Redemption  is  undertaken  by  Jesus, 
the  Messiah  of  the  Demiurge,  upon  whom,  at  his  baptism,  the 
heavenly  Soter  descends  to  proclaim  divine  truth,  and  by  impart¬ 
ing  the  Gnosis  for  the  sake  of  opening  the  eyes  of  the  pneumatic 
beings,  to  aid  them  in  finding  their  way  to  the  pleroma  above. 
The  Demiurge  falls  in  with  the  plans  of  the  Soter.  The  psychical 
Christ  is  crucified,  but  the  heavenly  Christ  prosecutes  His  redemp¬ 
tive  work  to  its  completion.  In  all  this,  Judaism  is  not  presented 
as  antagonistic,  but  as  subordinate,  to  the  supreme  powers. 

Marcion  is  the  most  prominent  figure  among  the  Anti-Judaic 
Gnostics.  Yet,  such  are  the  peculiarities  of  his  system  that  he 
stands  in  important  respects  by  himself.  He  was  born  in  Asia 
Minor,  and  came  to  Rome  about  a.d.  140.  His  intensely  practi¬ 
cal  temper  and  his  moral  earnestness  are  traits  which  command 
respect.  Deeply  moved  by  the  revelation  of  the  merciful  char¬ 
acter  of  God  in  the  Gospel  of  Salvation,  and  by  the  Apostle  Paul’s 
proclamation  of  the  freedom  and  universality  of  divine  grace,  Mar¬ 
cion  conceived  that  the  Old  Testament  system,  especially  its  rep¬ 
resentations  of  the  character  of  God,  are  in  contradiction  to  the 
truth  which  had  so  profoundly  stirred  his  sympathy.  He  inferred 
that  the  Old  Testament  could  not  have  had  the  same  origin  as 
the  Gospel.  He  magnified  the  contrast  of  law  and  grace  into  a 
direct  antagonism.  Moreover,  nature  struck  him  as  imperfect, 
and  therefore  as  not  proceeding  from  the  Father  of  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ.  Marcion  assumed  the  existence  of  three  principles  : 
Hyle,  or  matter,  which  is  eternal;  the  God  of  love,  incapable  of 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


59 


contact  with  matter ;  and  the  Demiurge,  a  being  of  limited  power 
who  strives  with  but  partial  success  to  form  and  shape  matter. 
The  resistance  of  this  element  to  the  Demiurge  is  concentrated  in 
Satan.  The  Demiurge  is  a  God  of  justice,  but  justice,  retributive 
displeasure,  penalty,  are  incompatible  with  Love.  Christianity, 
therefore,  is  an  utterly  new  system,  standing  in  no  organic  connec¬ 
tion  with  the  former  dispensation.  It  is  hostile  alike  to  Judaism 
and  heathenism.  Without  an  insight  into  the  progressive  char¬ 
acter  of  divine  revelation,  and  not  resorting,  like  so  many  of  his 
contemporaries,  to  allegory  as  a  solvent  of  difficulties,  he  had  no 
alternative  but  altogether  to  discard  the  Old  Testament.  The 
Demiurge,  he  held,  created  men  after  his  own  image,  giving  them 
material  bodies,  subject  to  evil  desires,  and  revealed  himself  to 
the  Jews  whom  he  chose  for  his  own  people.  He  gave  them  a 
law  made  up  of  externals,  together  with  a  defective  system  of 
morals,  void  of  an  inner,  life-giving  principle.  He  promised  them 
a  world-conquering  Messiah  who  should  bring  the  heathen  to  a 
rigid  judgment.  But  the  good  God  would  not  suffer  this  harsh 
sentence  to  be  carried  out.  In  the  fifteenth  year  of  Tiberius,  He 
suddenly  descended  to  Capernaum,  in  an  unreal  body,  but  styled 
Himself  the  Messiah.  Jesus,  however,  was  not  the  Demiurge’s 
Messiah,  and  disregarded  his  laws.  The  Demiurge  caused  Him 
to  be  crucified.  But  His  sufferings  were  only  apparent ;  the  Demi¬ 
urge  saw  himself  deceived  and  his  power  destroyed.  Christ  de¬ 
scended  to  Hades  and  transported  the  poor  heathen  to  the  third 
heaven.  He  then  revealed  Himself  to  the  Demiurge  and  com¬ 
pelled  him  to  acknowledge  his  guilt  in  crucifying  an  innocent  per¬ 
son.  It  is  only  those  who  reject  the  fellowship  of  God  who  fall 
under  the  Demiurge’s  avenging  justice. 

Marcion  regarded  Paul  as  the  only  true  Apostle.  The  other 
Apostles  had  corrupted  the  Gospel.  For  this  reason  he  accepted 
no  other  Gospel  except  that  of  Luke,  from  which  he  endeavored 
to  eliminate  passages  not  congruous  with  his  ideas  of  the  Law. 
With  this  Gospel,  which  was  acceptable  to  him  partly  on  account 
of  the  relation  of  the  author  to  Paul,  he  joined  ten  of  Paul’s  Epis¬ 
tles.  Marcion  asserted  no  higher  place  for  a  gtiosis  above  the 
faith  of  ordinary  Christians.  His  code  of  morals  was  ascetic. 
Marriage  and  the  partaking  of  flesh  and  of  wine  were  abjured. 
His  system  was  an  aggressive  one  and  was  zealously  propa¬ 
gated.  The  Marcionites  were  found  in  Egypt  and  Syria,  as  well 


6o 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


as  in  Italy  and  Africa.  The  number  of  polemical  books  written 
against  them  indicates  how  wide  was  the  diffusion  of  the  sect  in 
its  different  branches.  Its  votaries  were  still  found  several  cen¬ 
turies  after  the  death  of  its  founder. 

The  danger  to  which  the  Church  and  the  Christian  religion  were 
exposed  from  the  seductive  influences  of  Gnosticism  was  far 
greater  than  the  peril  arising  from  the  antipodal  heresy  of  Ebioni- 
tism.  Ebionitism  was  the  struggle  of  an  obsolescent  system  to 
maintain  its  standing.  It  was  a  desperate  effort  to  cling  to  a  re¬ 
ceding  past.  The  freedom  and  catholicity  of  the  Gospel  were 
truths  too  evident  to  be  obscured,  and  too  precious  to  be  surren¬ 
dered.  The  exaltation  of  Christ  in  His  relation  to  God  was  felt 
to  be  vitally  connected  with  the  Christian  experience  of  Recon¬ 
ciliation  through  Him,  and  too  plain  in  the  Apostolic  teaching  to 
be  given  up.  But  the  Gnostic  sects  professed  to  furnish  a  rational 
and  comprehensive  system  of  religious  truth,  in  which  redemption 
through  Christ  should  have  a  place  of  honor.  They  connected 
with  their  doctrines  the  charm  of  mystery,  holding  out  to  the 
initiated  the  welcome  promise  of  light,  and  alluring  many  by 
ascetic  prescriptions.  Christianity  manifested  its  innate  power  in 
withstanding  this  flood  of  error.  The  doctrine  of  one  God,  of  the 
origin  of  sin,  not  in  any  natural  necessity,  but  in  a  moral  fall,  and 
the  doctrine  of  a  real  incarnation,  proved  to  be  barriers  too  strong 
to  be  swept  away.  Gnosticism  stands  on  the  page  of  history  as  a 
perpetual  warning  against  all  endeavors  to  substitute  a  physical  or 
metaphysical  for  an  ethical  doctrine  of  sin  and  redemption.  One 
of  the  marked  effects  of  the  Gnostical  theories  was  the  influence 
exerted  by  them  in  stimulating  the  development  of  theology 
within  the  limits  of  the  Church.  It  may  almost  be  said  that  it 
was  in  the  storm  and  stress  occasioned  by  the  Gnostical  move¬ 
ment  that  Christian  theology  was  roused  to  grapple  with  its  most 
weighty  problems.  The  indirect  agency  of  the  Gnostic  move¬ 
ment  in  determining  the  character  of  the  old-Catholic  church  is 
manifest. 


CHAPTER  V 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THEOLOGY  :  THE  GREEK  APOLOGISTS 

The  beginnings  of  Christian  theology  are  to  be  found  in  the 
Greek  Apologists.  These  writers  treat  Christianity  predominantly 
as  a  body  of  teachings  pertaining  to  religion  and  morals.  It  is 
true  that  we  must  bear  in  mind  the  special  regard  which  they 
have  to  the  character  and  situation  of  those  whom  they  address. 
This  circumstance  is  not  sufficient,  however,  to  explain  their 
pervading  tendency.  It  is  really  the  point  of  view  from  which 
they  habitually  look  at  the  Gospel.  Justin  Martyr,  in  the  early 
part  of  the  First  Apology,  in  a  summary  way  describes  Chris¬ 
tianity  as  consisting  of  the  doctrine  of  the  true  God,  in  contrast 
with  the  superstitions  of  the  heathen  —  who,  with  the  exception 
of  the  philosophers,  are  misled  by  the  demons  —  of  the  doctrine 
of  virtue,  and  of  rewards  and  punishments  in  the  world  hereafter.1 
The  Gospel  is  a  new  and  improved  philosophy  the  truth  of  which 
is  attested  by  revelation.  There  is  this  heaven-given  guaranty  of 
its  truth,  which  is  wholly  wanting  to  the  heathen  in  reference  to 
the  beliefs  which  they  have  in  common  with  Christians.  This 
claim  for  Christianity  that  it  is  a  philosophy,  and  as  such  merits 
attention  and  respect,  pervades  the  Apologetic  literature.  Even 
Tatian,  who  speaks  with  scorn  of  the  pride  of  the  Greeks  and  the 
boasting  and  wrangling  of  the  philosophers,  professed  to  be  the 
disciple  of  an  older  philosophy,  superior  in  its  contents,  although 
of  “  barbaric  origin,”  and  having  the  peculiar  merit  of  being 
accessible  to  all,  “the  rich  and  the  poor,”  even  “old  women  and 
striplings.” 2  The  Apologists  are  at  pains  to  adduce  from  the 
heathen  sages  ideas  and  precepts  coincident  with  those  of  the 
Gospel.  Their  teachings,  it  is  affirmed,  are  mixed  to  some  extent 

1  Apol.  I.  9-12.  Cf.  6-8,  13-20. 

2  Orat.  c.  xxxii.  Cf.  xxxv.,  xlii. 

61 


62 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


with  error.  They  are  borrowed,  it  is  sometimes  alleged,  from  the 
older  teaching  of  Moses  and  the  prophets.  Yet,  Justin  emphati¬ 
cally  maintains,  what  is  best  in  Plato  and  the  other  philosophers 
was  imparted  by  the  divine  Logos,  who  did  not  withhold  light 
even  from  those  guides  of  the  heathen.  Christ,  says  Justin,  “  is 
♦  the  Logos  (or  Word)  of  whom  the  whole  human  race  are  par¬ 
takers,  and  those  who  lived  according  to  reason  are  Christians, 
even  though  accounted  atheists.  Such  among  the  Greeks  were 
Socrates  and  Heraclitus,  and  those  who  resembled  them.” 1 
Justin  is  not  silent  respecting  the  work  of  Christ  as  a  Redeemer. 
It  was  a  part  of  the  mission  of  Christ  to  overcome  the  demons.2 
“He  cleansed  by  His  blood  those  who  believed  on  Him.”3  By 
His  blood  and  the  mystery  of  His  cross,  He  bought  us.4  Yet  in 
some  places  there  is  coupled  with  expressions  of  this  kind  lan¬ 
guage  indicating  that,  nevertheless,  it  is  the  teaching  of  Christ 
which  holds  the  central  place  in  Justin’s  thoughts.  In  keeping 
with  this  way  of  looking  at  Christianity  as  a  collection  of  tenets 
respecting  God  and  duty  and  future  rewards  and  punishments,  is 
the  view  taken  of  its  proofs.  It  is  true  that  the  Apologists  do  not 
fail  to  refer  to  the  purity  and  elevation  of  Christian  doctrines,  in 
comparison  with  ethnic  teaching.  They  dwell,  moreover,  with 
emphasis  on  the  restraining  and  refining  power  of  Christianity  as 
evinced  in  the  lives  of  its  adherents.  But  the  grand  proof  on 
which  reliance  is  placed  is  the  miracle  of  prophecy.  The  appeal 
is  constantly  made  to  the  marvellous  correspondence  of  the 
history  of  Christ  with  the  predictions  of  the  Old  Testament. 
Here  is  the  Gibraltar  in  which  the  early  Greek  defenders  of  the 
faith  plant  themselves. 

We  proceed  now  to  speak  separately  of  the  leading  points  in 
the  theology  of  Justin  in  their  proper  order.  In  his  writings  a 
certain  contrast  is  perceptible  between  what  strike  us  as  custom¬ 
ary  phrases  respecting  the  Gospel  —  expressions  used,  to  be  sure, 
with  no  lack  of  sincerity — and  the  interpretations  of  Christianity 
which  spring  from  his  own  reflection,  under  the  influence  of  his 
philosophical  bent.5  We  find  him  attributing  to  God  all  the 
varied  personal  attributes  and  agencies  which  it  is  usual  for 

1  Apol.  I.  46.  3  Apol.  I.  32.  Cf.  Dial.  40,  54. 

2  Ibid.  I.  45;  II.  6;  Dial.  131.  4  Dial.  134. 

0  The  difference  here  pointed  out  is  well  illustrated  by  Turves  in  The 

7'estimony  of  Justin  Martyr  to  Early  Christianity  (1889). 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


63 


Christian  believers  to  ascribe  to  Him.  He  is  the  living  God, 
just  and  compassionate,  the  Father  and  Maker  of  all,  knowing  all 
things,  ruling  all,  caring  for  the  individual  as  well  as  for  the  world 
in  its  totality.  Yet  we  have  presented  prominently  another  con¬ 
ception,  Platonic  and  Alexandrian  Jewish,  of  God  as  the  tran¬ 
scendent,  ineffable  One,  too  exalted  to  be  the  subject  of  definite 
predicates,  the  ordinary  representations  of  Him  being  merely 
relative  to  our  finite  apprehension.  It  is  only  through  an  inter¬ 
mediate  being  that  He  is  revealed.  It  is  through  the  Logos  or 
Word,  that  God  is  manifested.  Justin  knew  and  used  the  Fourth 
Gospel.  It  is  not  reasonable  to  suppose  that  the  identifying  of 
Christ  with  the  Logos  in  the  extent  to  which  he  carries  it,  is  to 
be  explained  had  he  not  been  conscious  of  a  warrant  from  Apos¬ 
tolic  authority.  Yet  Justin’s  particular  idea  of  the  Logos  is  not 
consonant  with  that  of  John,  but  corresponds  to  that  of  Plato  and 
Philo.  The  Logos  of  Justin  is  not,  as  in  the  Palestinian  sources, 
including  John,  the  Word  of  God,  but  the  divine  Reason.  The 
Logos,  impersonal  in  God  from  the  beginning,  becomes  personal 
prior  to  the  creation.  “  God  begot  of  Himself  a  beginning, 
before  all  creatures,  a  certain  reasonable  Power,  which  is  called  by 
the  Holy  Ghost,  Glory  of  the  Lord,  at  other  times  Son,  Wisdom, 
Angel,  God,  Lord,  and  Logos.”1  In  the  production  of  the  Son, 
God  was  not  Himself  changed,  more  than  a  man’s  mind  is 
changed  by  the  utterance  of  a  word,  or  a  fire  lessened  by  having 
another  fire  kindled  from  it.  He  is  the  only-begotten  by  the 
Father  of  all  things.2  He  is  from  the  Father  “  not  by  abscission, 
as  if  the  Father’s  essence  were  divided  off.”3  He  is  not  an 
emanation  as  the  light  emanates  from  the  sun.4  The  language  of 
Justin  implies  that  the  inner  nature  of  the  Son  is  identical  with 
that  of  the  Father.  The  sonship  of  Christ  is  thus  traced  back  to 
the  ante-mundane  generation  of  the  hypostatic  Logos.  Moreover, 
the  Logos,  next  to  the  Father,  is  the  recipient  of  divine  honors. 
He  is  associated  with  the  Father  when  it  is  said,  “  Let  us  make 
man  in  our  own  image”  (Gen.  i.  26). 5  It  was  the  Logos  who 
appeared  in  the  theophanies  of  the  Old  Testament.  Neverthe¬ 
less,  Justin  does  not  fully  succeed  in  taking  Christ  out  of  the 
category  of  creatures.  He  is  begotten,  or  assumes  a  personal 
form  of  being,  by  an  act  of  God’s  will.  He  was  generated  from 

1  Dial.  61.  2  Ibid.  105.  3  Ibid.  128. 


4  Ibid.  128. 


5  Ibid.  62. 


64 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


the  Father  “  by  his  power  and  will.”  1  The  Logos  is  another  “  in 
number,”  but  not  in  “  mind  (or  will).”2  There  is  a  personal 
distinction,  but  this  is  not  eternal,  and  it  springs  from  an  act  of 
God’s  will,  anterior  to  the  creation  of  the  world.3  To  the  Son  is 
assigned  the  second  place  in  relation  to  the  eternal  God.4  More¬ 
over,  while  the  “  unbegotten  God  ”  does  not  move,  nor  is  he  con¬ 
tained  in  any  place,  the  Logos  enters  into  the  limits  of  place  and 
time.5  In  Tatian  and  Athenagoras,  the  Logos  is  from  eternity 
potentially  in  God,  and  “  came  forth  to  be  the  idea  and  energiz¬ 
ing  power  of  all  material  things.”  6  “  By  his  simple  will,”  says 

Tatian,  “  the  Logos  springs  forth,”  “  the  first-begotten  work  of  the 
Father,”  “  the  beginning  of  the  world.”  Here  is  no  abscission, 
there  is  a  participation  on  the  part  of  the  Logos,7  a  function 
devolved  on  the  Logos,  the  power  or  principle  from  which  he 
springs  being  still  inherent  in  the  Father.8  Theophilus  distin¬ 
guishes  the  internal  Logos  from  the  Logos  expressed.9  The 
former  is  said  to  be  not  distinguishable  from  God’s  mind  and 
thought.10 

The  Logos  is  the  origin  of  divine  revelation.  It  is  God  who 
creates,  but  the  rationality  of  the  creation  springs  from  the  Logos. 
He  bears,  according  to  Justin,  the  closest  relation  to  the  reason 
of  man.  The  human  reason  is  akin-  to  the  divine,  and  all  of 
its  perceptions  of  truth  are  derived,  in  a  way  that  is  only  vaguely 
indicated,  from  the  Logos.  Justin  speaks  of  the  “  seminal  Logos  ” 
of  whom  all  men  partake.  To  the  Logos  are  ascribed  functions 
which  a  riper  theology,  in  conformity  with  Scripture,  attributes 
to  the  Holy  Spirit.  Justin  says  that  it  was  the  Logos  who  caused 
the  Virgin  Mother  to  conceive.11  Little  space  is  left  in  human 
history  for  the  activity  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  It  is  the  Logos  which 
inspires  the  prophets  and  is  everywhere  active.  Yet  Justin  speaks 

1  Dial.  128.  He  is  piovoyevris  (only-begotten)  —  Dial.  105.  When  He  is 
called  first-born  ( irpuroTOKos )  it  is  not  implied  that  beings  and  things  below 
Him  are  begotten  in  the  same  sense.  On  this  topic  see  the  remarks  of  Engel- 
hardt  (in  answer  to  Weizsacker),  p.  146. 

2  Cf.  Dial.  56,  62,  128,  129.  3  Apol.  II.  6. 

4  Dial.  127,  cf.  34,  60. 

5  Ibid.  127  ;  cf.  34,  60.  Athenagoras,  10. 

6  Athenagoras,  10. 

7  He  comes  into  being  /card  p.epi<jp.6v.  Tatian,  c.  5. 

8  ivdiadeTos.  10  Ad.  Autol.  II.  IO,  22. 

9  irpocpopiKos.  11  Apol.  I.  33. 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


65 


of  the  Spirit  in  conjunction  with  the  Father  and  Christ,  in  such 
terms  as  naturally  to  imply  that  the  Spirit  is  regarded  as  distinct 
from  both,  although  subordinate  to  them.1  It  is  evident  that 
his  conception  of  the  Holy  Spirit  and  of  the  relation  of  the  Spirit 
to  the  Father  and  Son  is  not  well  defined  in  his  own  thoughts.2 

It  is  clear  that  Justin  considered  the  humanity  of  Christ  a  reality 
and  not  an  illusive  appearance.  But  in  one  particular  a  question 
arises  respecting  his  views  on  this  subject.  In  one  passage  he 

1  Apol.  I.  13,  61,  65,  67.  Cf.  Dial.  1,  4,  29. 

2  In  Apol.  I.  6,  Justin  enumerates  as  the  objects  of  Christian  worship  the 
most  true  God,  the  Son  who  came  from  Him,  “and  the  host  of  other  good 
angels,”  and  the  Spirit  of  Prophecy.  The  placing  of  the  angels  in  the  list 
before  the  Spirit  was  probably  an  accident,  being  suggested  not  unlikely  by 
the  mention  of  the  Son  as  sent  from  God;  that  is,  as  a  messenger,  the  literal 
sense  of  “  angel.”  But  what  of  the  worship  which  is  said  to  be  accorded  to 
angels  ?  As  Justin  nowhere  else  refers  to  a  worship  of  angels,  but  asserts  that 
only  the  Father,  Son,  and  Spirit  are  to  be  worshipped  (Apol.  I.  13,  61,65,66), 
it  is  probable  that  the  term  ‘  worship  ’  is  used  in  Apol.  I.  6,  without  reflection, 
in  a  loose  sense,  his  aim  being  here  to  confute  the  charge  of  atheism.  The 
Christians,  he  would  say,  are  not  so  destitute,  as  you  assert,  of  celestial  objects 
of  veneration.  The  apologetic  motive  leads  Justin  here  to  show  that  these 
are  numerous.  (On  this  point,  see  Baumgarten-Crusius,  DG.,  p.  175,  note  1. 
The  various  opinions  upon  the  sense  of  the  passage  are  given  in  Otto’s  ed.  of 
Justin,  ad  loci)  It  must  be  observed,  however,  that  Justin  represented  mate¬ 
rial  things  and  the  care  of  men  to  have  been  committed  to  the  charge  of 
angels  (Apol.  II.  5).  There  is  ground  for  the  remark  of  Neander,  that  “we 
may  observe  a  wavering  between  the  idea  of  the  Holy  Ghost  as  one  of  the 
members  of  the  Triad,  and  a  spirit  standing  in  some  relationship  with  the 
angels.”  ( Church  History,  Vol.  I.  p.  609.  See  especially  the  note  on  the 
same  page.)  On  this  subject,  there  is  an  instructive  passage  in  Engelhardt, 
p.  146.  His  quotation  from  Nitzsch  (DG.,  p.  186)  is  worthy  of  attention. 
Athenagoras  makes  a  part  of  Christianity,  “  to  0eo\oyu<6v  fxlpos  ”  — or  the  doc¬ 
trine  of  God  —  the  affirmation  of  a  multitude  of  angels  and  servants  —  “  mean¬ 
ing,  probably,  angels  that  are  servants  —  whom  the  Creator  has  appointed  to 
occupy  themselves  with  the  elements,  and  the  heavens  and  the  world  and  the 
things  that  are  in  it,  and  with  the  regulating  of  them  ”  (Emb.  10.  Cf.  c.  24). 
Here  there  seems  to  be  the  recognition  of  divine  beings  of  a  secondary  class. 
The  subordination  of  all  these  to  the  one  God  and  Father  was  felt  to  be 
adequate  to  the  securing  of  monotheism.  “  So  fluctuating  (fliessend)  and 
indeterminate,”  says  Thomasius  (DG.,  1,  175)  “is  everything  as  yet.  The 
above-named  Church  teachers  are  themselves  still  struggling  for  the  expression 
that  shall  correspond  to  the  common  Christian  faith.”  Or,  in  the  words  of 
Neander,  “  the  common  (Christian)  feeling  did  not  find  at  once  its  correspond¬ 
ing  expression  in  the  forms  evolved  by  the  understanding.”  {Church  History, 
I.  609.) 


F 


66 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


speaks  of  Christ  as  composed  of  body,  Logos,  soul.1  Since  he 
elsewhere  analyzes  human  nature  into  three  elements,  spirit,  soul 
—  that  is,  animal  soul  —  and  body,  it  is  inferred  that  in  his  con¬ 
ception  of  Christ,  the  Logos  takes  the  place  of  the  rational  human 
spirit.  It  is  not  certain,  however,  that  he  might  not  use  “  soul  ” 
in  the  more  comprehensive  sense.2  It  is  not  unlikely  that  the 
question  was  not  in  his  own  mind  a  subject  of  discriminating 
thought. 

Justin  asserts  creation  to  have  been  by  an  act  of  the  divine  will. 
But  it  is  principally  to  the  ordering  of  the  world,  the  forming  of 
the  cosmos,  that  his  attention  is  directed.  There  is  no  explicit 
rejection  of  the  doctrine  of  the  eternity  of  the  preexisting  matter, 
the  chaotic  material.3  Even  if  he  himself  did  not  hold  the  Pla¬ 
tonic  view,  as  did  his  pupil,  Tatian,  he  nevertheless  does  not 
consider  that  opinion  an  error  of  sufficient  moment  to  call  for  a 
denial  of  it. 

In  common  with  the  other  Apologists,  Justin  is  strenuous  in  his 
repudiation  of  Stoic  fatalism.  His  earnestness  in  asserting  the 
liberty  and  responsibility  of  the  individual  carries  along  with  it 
the  failure  adequately  to  perceive  the  power  of  sinful  habit.  Sin, 
he  teaches,  was  brought  into  the  world  by  the  agency  of  demons, 
but  not  without  the  consent  of  the  transgressor  in  each  case  of 
guilt.  And  it  is  still  in  the  power  of  men  to  cast  off  sin  by  the 
exertion  of  their  own  wills.4  There  is  no  predestination  to  sin, 
but  simply  foreknowledge  of  it.  All  men  will  be  judged,  each 
for  himself,  “  like  Adam  and  Eve.”5 

It  has  been  remarked  that  when  Justin  makes  the  ordinary 
statements  respecting  the  efficacy  of  the  cross,  it  is  not  an  expia¬ 
tory  work  of  Christ  which  is  prominent  in  his  mind.  It  is  the 
Incarnation  rather  than  the  Atonement  that  interests  him.  Yet 
a  passage  quoted  by  Irenseus  from  Justin’s  lost  work  against  Mar- 
cion,  suggests  that  in  the  other  writings  not  extant  Justin  may 
have  had  something  more  definite  to  teach  on  this  last  theme. 
In  this  passage,  he  speaks  of  the  only-begotten  Son  as  sent  into 

1  <ru>/ ua,  Xoyos,  i/'i'X7?  —  Apol.  II.  io. 

2  The  interpretation  of  Justin  is  impartially  discussed,  with  a  statement  of 
arguments  on  both  sides,  by  Dorner,  Person  Christi,  1.  433  sq. 

3  The  attitude  of  Justin  on  this  point  is  well  explained  by  Engelhardt,  pp. 
139,  140. 

4  Apol.  I.  28,  43,  44;  Apol.  II.  7;  Dial.  88,  102,  140.  5  Dial.  124. 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


67 


the  world  from  the  Father,  and  “  gathering  in  Himself  the  work 
of  His  own  hands  —  suum  plasma  in  semetipsum  recapitulans.” 
In  Irenseus,  as  we  shall  see,  the  gathering  up  ( recapitulatio )  of 
mankind  in  Christ  as  their  head  is  the  thought  at  the  root  of  his 
exposition  of  the  Atonement.1 

Justin  believed  in  the  doctrine  of  a  temporal  millennium,  which 
in  the  second  century  was  widely  diffused.  Christ  was  to  come 
in  a  visible  advent,  and  make  Jerusalem  the  centre  of  His  king¬ 
dom,  which  was  to  continue  for  a  thousand  years  and  was  to  be 
followed  by  the  resurrection  and  the  judgment.  In  the  Dialogue 
with  Trypho  he  teaches  that  there  will  be  two  resurrections,  sepa¬ 
rated  by  the  interval  of  the  millennium.2  The  Second  Advent 
was  not  far  distant.  The  Jews  are  not  described  as  to  be  in  any 
way  distinguished  in  the  triumphal  advent  of  the  Lord.  Nothing 
is  said  of  a  restoration  of  them  to  Jerusalem. 

Justin  departs  from  Plato  in  affirming  that  souls  are  not  essen¬ 
tially  immortal.  Their  continuance  in  being  depends  forever  on 
the  will  of  God.  The  statement  is  not  seldom  reiterated,  that 
punishment  in  the  world  to  come  is  eternal.  The  idea  that  it  is 
supposed  by  Justin  to  terminate,  and  that  immortality  in  the  strict 
sense  is  made  conditional  on  being  righteous,  is  erroneously  in¬ 
ferred  from  what  is  said  of  dependence  on  the  will  of  God  for 
the  continuance  of  being.  “  Immortality  ”  in  Justin,  as  in  other 
Apologists,  includes  the  vision  of  God  and  blessed  fellowship 
with  Him.  This  it  is  that  the  wicked  are  to  be  forever  deprived 
of.  “  I  affirm,”  he  says,  “  that  souls  never  perish  —  for  this  would 
be  in  truth  a  godsend  to  the  wicked.”3  “We  have  been  taught 
that  they  only  will  attain  to  immortality  who  lead  holy  and  vir¬ 
tuous  lives  like  God ;  and  we  believe  that  all  who  live  wickedly, 
and  do  not  repent,  will  be  punished  in  eternal  fire.” 4 

Of  the  intermediate  state  of  the  condition  of  souls,  whether 
righteous  or  wicked,  prior  to  the  resurrection,  nothing  definite 
is  said  by  Justin. 

The  Church,  in  Justin’s  conception  of  it,  was  a  Gentile  commu¬ 
nity.  The  number  of  Jews  who  had  accepted  the  Gospel  is  said 
to  be  small.  He  would  not  deny  fellowship  to  Jewish  believers 
who  kept  up  the  Mosaic  ceremonies,  provided  they  did  not  strive 
to  induce  Gentile  Christians  to  adopt  them.  This  was  the  limit 

1  Irenaeus,  Adv.  Hcer.  IV.  6,  2.  3<,E p/xcuov.  Dial.  5. 

2  Dial.  81,  1 13.  4  Apol.  I.  21.  Cf.  Dial.  130,  Apol.  I.  28. 


68 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


of  his  charity  in  this  direction.  In  his  teaching  relative  to  the 
origin  of  the  new  life  in  the  Christian  soul,  and  its  continuance, 
there  are  found  what  have  been  not  inaptly  called  Pelagian 
statements  in  juxtaposition  with  teaching  of  an  opposite  character. 
On  the  one  hand,  the  Christian  life  is  said  to  begin  in  the  vir¬ 
tuous  choice,  a  choice  that  is  spoken  of  as  if  it  were  wholly  self- 
originated  and  self-sustained  ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  there  is 
not  wholly  wanting  a  recognition  of  an  opening  of  “  the  gates  of 
life”  by  divine  grace,  “the  grace  of  understanding.”1  Now 
Baptism  is  spoken  of  as  ensuing  upon  a  conviction  of  the  truth 
of  Christianity  and  a  self-dedication  to  a  life  of  virtue,  and  again 
it  is  described  as  “regeneration”  and  as  bringing  “illumination” 
to  the  soul.2  Baptism  brings  the  remission  of  sins  previously 
committed.  It  thus  clears  the  way  to  a  hopeful  endeavor  to 
voluntary  efforts  to  obtain  the  rewards  of  heaven  through  a  course 
of  obedience.3  As  regards  the  Lord’s  Supper,  nothing  is  said  of 
any  direct  effect  of  it  to  remove  sin  or  guilt.  But  our  flesh  and 
blood  are  said  to  be  nourished  by  assimilating3  the  bread  and 
wine  of  the  sacrament,  —  nourished,  the  meaning  probably  is, 
with  reference  to  the  resurrection  and  the  future  life  of  “  incor¬ 
ruption.”  The  food  thus  received  is  said  to  be  “  the  flesh  and 
blood  of  Jesus.”4  The  idea  of  Justin  appears  to  be  that  the 
divine  Logos  is  mysteriously  present  in  the  bread  and  wine,  as  in 
the  Incarnate  Christ.  There  is  no  probability  that  literal  tran- 
substantiation  is  meant. 

The  pearl  of  the  Apologetic  literature  is  the  Epistle  to  Diognetus. 
None  of  the  early  writings  of  this  class  rival  it  in  spirit  and  impres¬ 
siveness.  The  author  fails  to  discern,  as  it  would  seem,  the  pre¬ 
paratory  office  of  the  Mosaic  system,  and  puts  the  sacrifices  and 
ceremonies  of  the  Jews  as  on  the  same  level  with  the  external  ser¬ 
vices  rendered  by  the  heathen  to  their  divinities.  The  true  char¬ 
acter  of  Christian  disciples  and  the  cruelty  with  which  they  were 
treated  he  depicts  with  nervous  eloquence.  The  incarnation  and 
divinity  of  Christ  are  asserted  with  all  earnestness.  The  Creator 
of  the  Universe  has  sent  to  men,  not  an  angel  or  any  other 
subaltern,  but  “the  Artificer  and  Creator  of  the  Universe  Himself,” 
by  whom  He  made  and  ordered  all  things.  He  sent  Him  not  to 

1  Dial.  7,  30.  2  Apol.  I.  61.  3  Ibid.  I.  66. 

4  The  passage  is  in  Apol.  I.  66.  This  is  the  sense  of  fjLeTa^oXrjv.  See 
Otto’s  Justin ,  I.  p.  1 80  (ed.  3). 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


69 

inspire  terror.  He  sent  Him  to  use  persuasion,  not  force.  He 
sent  Him  “as  sending  God,”  and  “as  a  man  unto  men.”1  “He 
sent  His  only-begotten  Son.”  He  communicated  His  merciful 
plan  to  His  Son  alone.2  He  planned  everything  in  His  mind 
with  His  Son.3  “The  Word,  who  was  from  the  beginning.  .  .  . 
He,  I  say  who  was  eternal,  who  to-day  was  accounted  a  Son”  — 
by  Him  the  riches  of  grace  are  bestowed  on  the  faithful  and  on  all 
who  seek  for  it.4  If  Justin  touches  lightly  the  Atonement,  the 
opposite  is  true  of  the  author  of  this  Epistle.  God  “in  pity  took 
on  Him  our  sins,  and  Himself  parted  with  His  own  Son  as  a  ran¬ 
som  for  us,  the  holy  for  the  lawless,  the  just  for  the  unjust.  .  .  . 
In  whom  was  it  possible  for  us  lawless  and  ungodly  men  to  have 
been  justified,  save  only  in  the  Son  of  God?  O  the  sweet  ex¬ 
change.  .  .  .  that  the  iniquity  of  many  should  be  concealed  in 
One  Righteous  Man,”  etc.3  The  love  and  pity  of  God  are  set 
forth  in  glowing  words  ;  yet  the  penalty  that  awaits  the  wicked  and 
unrepenting  is  “eternal  fire.”5 

1  Epist.  ad  Diognet.  c.  7.  2  c.  8.  3  c.  9.  4  c.  11.  5  c.  10. 


CHAPTER  VI 


THE  RISE  OF  THE  OLD  CATHOLIC  CHURCH - THE  RULE  OF  FAITH  — 

THE  CANON  —  THE  EPISCOPATE  —  THE  RISE  AND  THE  EXCLUSION 
OF  MONTANISM 

The  course  of  the  development  of  doctrine  is  intimately  con¬ 
nected  with  the  rise  of  the  Ancient  Catholic  Church.  An  essen¬ 
tial  element  in  this  historic  change  is  indicated  in  the  new  mean¬ 
ing  which  came  to  be  attached  to  the  term  ‘Catholic.’  In  Ignatius 
it  signifies  Christians  generally,  the  Church  of  which  Christ  is  the 
centre,  in  contrast  with  each  local  church,  the  centre  of  which  is 
the  bishop.  The  contrast  is  between  the  Catholic  Church  and  a 
particular  body  of  Christians.1  Later,  in  the  age  of  Irenaeus,  the 
Catholic  Church  has  come  to  signify  orthodox  Christianity  in  its 
organized  form  in  the  world  at  large,  as  this  Church  stands  aloof 
from  heretical  sects.  The  three  principal  topics  which  we  have  to 
consider  under  the  general  subject  are  the  Baptismal  Confession 
or  “Apostles’  Creed”  and  the  “Rules  of  Faith,”  Tradition  and 
Scripture,  including  the  rise  of  the  Canon,  and  organization  under 
the  developed  Episcopate. 

I.  The  authoritative  source  of  Christian  knowledge  was  always 
considered  to  be  the  Teaching  of  the  Lord  through  the  Twelve 
Apostles,  which  forms  the  title  of  the  Didache.  In  phraseology 
of  this  kind  the  teaching  of  the  Apostle  Paul  was  understood  to 
be  included.  The  instruction  given  to  the  young  and  to  the  con¬ 
verts  was  not  confined  to  an  inculcation  of  the  precepts  of  the 
Gospel  such  as  we  find  in  Hermas  and  the  Didache.  The 
baptismal  formula,  as  we  find  it  in  Matthew,  was  early  expanded 
into  a  brief  statement  of  fundamental  truths.  As  thus  enlarged  it 
was  repeated  by  the  candidates  for  baptism  and  served  as  the 
basis  of  preliminary  instruction.  Probably  as  early  as  the  third 

1  Smyrn.  8.  See  Lightfoot,  Ignatius  and  Polycarp ,  II.  i,  p.  310. 

70 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


71 


century  the  story  had  sprung  up  that  this  Confession  of  faith  was 
not  only  made  up  of  elements  common  to  the  Apostles’  teaching, 
but  also  that  it  was  composed  by  the  Apostles  themselves,  each 
of  them  contributing  a  portion.  The  legend  grew  until  it  finally 
embraced  the  statement  that  the  creed  was  brought  to  Rome  by 
Peter.  The  oldest  form  of  this  Confession  of  which  we  have  any 
knowledge  is  the  Roman  Symbol.  It  was  in  use  in  the  Church 
at  Rome  before  the  middle  of  the  second  century.  It  read  as 
follows  :  “  I  believe  in  God,  the  Father  Almighty,  and  in  Christ 
Jesus  his  only-begotten  Son,  our  Lord,  who  was  born  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  and  the  Virgin  Mary,  was  crucified  under  Pontius  Pilate  and 
was  buried,  on  the  third  day  He  rose  from  the  dead,  (He)  as¬ 
cended  into  Heaven,  (He)  sitteth  at  the  right  hand  of  the  Father, 
whence  He  will  come  to  judge  the  quick  and  the  dead ;  and  in 
(the)  Holy  Spirit,  the  Holy  Church,  the  remission  of  sins,  the 
resurrection  of  the  body.  Amen.” 1  This  creed  is  thought  by 
Zahn  to  have  been  in  use  in  Ephesus  as  early  as  130.2  There  are 
not  wanting  arguments  in  favor  of  the  opinion  that  it  originated 
in  Asia  Minor.3  Near  the  end  of  the  century  it  is  found  in 
Smyrna,  in  Southern  Gaul,  and  in  Carthage.  In  somewhat  modi¬ 
fied  forms  the  creed  spread  among  the  churches  of  the  East  and 
West.4  In  the  shape  which  it  assumed  in  Southern  Gaul,  probably 
in  the  fifth  century,  it  established  itself  in  the  churches  in  com¬ 
munion  with  Rome,  superseding  the  older  forms.  In  the  East  it 
was  not  ascribed  to  the  Apostles,  and  since  there  was  no  check 
upon  mutations  in  its  text,  it  melted  away,  never  gaining  a  perma¬ 
nent  lodgment  among  the  authoritative  creeds. 

Under  the  influence  of  the  disciplina  arcani —  the  obligation  of 
silence  respecting  the  mysteries  of  the  Christian  faith  —  the 
Apostles’  Creed  was  not  committed  to  writing  or  disclosed  to  the 
heathen.  But  under  the  name  of  “  rules  of  faith,”  we  find  in 
Irenaeus,  Tertullian  and  Origen,  statements  of  Christian  doctrine 
which  are  equivalent  to  a  paraphrase  or  expansion  of  the  creed. 

1  Hahn,  Biblioth.  d.  Symb.,  etc.,  15.  See  the  texts  and  critical  remarks  in 
Kattenbusch,  Das  Apostol.  Symbol ,  I.  pp.  59-78. 

2  Zahn,  Apostol.  Symbol,  etc.  (2  ed.  1893),  p.  47* 

3  Kattenbusch,  however,  maintains  the  reverse  —  that  the  “  Grundstock  ”  of 
the  Oriental  symbols  is  the  Roman.  Ibid.  I.  368-392. 

4  See  the  collection  of  these  forms  in  Denziger,  Enchirid.  Symbol!,  et 
Definitt.,  pp.  1-8. 


7  2 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


These  are  the  regulce.  fidei}  They  are  not  the  same,  save  as  to 
their  substance,  in  the  different  writers.  In  Irenaeus  the  Rule  of 
Faith  is  presented,  in  three  places,  in  as  many  different  forms.  In 
Tertullian  also  there  are  three  varying  forms  of  the  regula.  But 
the  Rules  of  Faith  are  represented  to  be  the  belief  of  “  the  Church, 
scattered  through  the  whole  world,”  —  the  belief  “  which  has  been 
received  from  the  Apostles  and  their  Disciples.” 1  2  In  this  definite, 
authoritative  teaching,  the  Church  everywhere  finds  a  bulwark 
against  Gnostical  innovations  and  perversions.  It  is  a  wall  about 
the  Church  for  defence  against  open  and  covert  assaults.  If  one 
would  ascertain  what  the  Apostles  taught,  we  are  told  that  it  is 
only  necessary  to  repair  to  the  churches  which  they  planted  and 
within  which  their  doctrines  have  been  preserved.3  These  churches 
are  so  many  witnesses  against  the  novelties  of  heresy.4 

II.  At  the  beginning  of  the  second  century  there  was  no  Canon 
of  the  New  Testament.5  That  is  to  say,  there  was  no  body  of 
New  Testament  writings  which  were  recognized  by  the  churches 
as  authoritative  scriptures.  As  far  as  writings  are  concerned,  the 
Old  Testament  was  in  the  foreground  of  their  thoughts  and  con¬ 
stituted  their  Bible.  It  was  to  the  Old  Testament  that  they 
referred  their  adversaries  in  proof  of  the  divine  mission  of  Jesus 
and  of  the  facts  of  the  Gospel.  They  appealed  to  the  correspond¬ 
ence  between  prediction  and  fulfilment.  At  first  the  eyes  of 
Christian  believers  were  directed  upwards  with  a  yearning  expec¬ 
tation  of  the  advent  of  the  Lord.  For  a  time  tradition  did  not 
become  in  a  perceptible  degree  insecure.  The  combined  influence 
of  oral  narration  and  writings  of  Apostles  and  their  disciples  suf¬ 
ficed  for  the  understanding  of  what  Christianity  was.  There  was 
no  distinct  impression  of  the  fact  that  the  period  of  revelation  had 

1  They  are  collected  in  Schaff,  Creeds  of  Christendom ,  II.  1 2  sq. 

2  Iren.  Adv.  Hcer.  I.  io,  i. 

3  Tertullian,  de  Prcescr.  c.  36.  Iren.  Adv .  Hcer.  III.  3,  1  sq. 

4  Tertullian,  de  Prcescr.  c.  21. 

5  The  title  “  Canon  ”  as  a  designation  of  the  normative  Scriptures  first 
appears  in  the  59th  Canon  of  the  Council  of  Laodicea  (a.d.  363)  and  in  the 
Festal  Epistle  of  Athanasius.  On  the  origin  and  meaning  of  the  term  ‘  canon,’ 
see  Westcott,  Hist,  of  the  Canon ,  p.  1  and  App.  A.  For  the  names  given  to 
the  Bible,  —  “The  Scripture,”  “The  Scriptures,”  “The  Holy  Scriptures,” 
“The  Scriptures  of  the  Lord”  (at  KvpiaKal  ypacpai),  “The  Prophets,”  “The 
Prophets  and  Apostles,”  “Testament,”  “Old  and  New  Testament,”  “Instru¬ 
ment,”  “Instruments,”  etc.  —  see  Zahn,  Gesch.  d.  N.  T.  Kanons ,  I.  i.  85-150. 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


73 


come  to  an  end.  Moreover,  the  Apostolic  writings  had  not  been 
altered  by  heretical  leaders  or  mingled  with  forged  compositions. 
But  when  an  opposite  state  of  things  arose,  the  importance  of  pre¬ 
serving,  collecting,  and  distinguishing  the  authentic  documents  of 
the  Christian  Revelation,  was  appreciated.  More  and  more,  oral 
traditions  became  less  secure.  Heretical  parties  set  up  the  claim 
to  possess  traditions  of  their  own,  by  which  they  sought  to  sustain 
their  novel  speculations.  The  Apostolic  writings  began  to  undergo 
alteration.  Works  having  no  title  to  be  ranked  with  them  were 
brought  forward  by  sectaries.  The  means  of  forming  the  Canon, 
as  soon  as  the  need  of  it  was  felt,  were  at  hand.  From  the  outset, 
there  had  been  a  circulation  of  Apostolic  writings  from  one  church 
to  another.1  Basilides,  the  Gnostic,  quotes  as  Scripture,  the  Epistle 
to  the  Romans,  and  the  First  to  the  Corinthians.2  Paul’s  Epistles 
were  so  regarded  when  the  Second  Epistle  of  Peter  was  written.3 
The  authority  of  the  Apostles’  Writings  was  not  questioned  in  the 
churches.  They  are  referred  to  by  Ignatius,  at  least  by  implica¬ 
tion,  as  a  class  of  writings  in  the  same  rank  with  the  prophets.4 
Clement  of  Alexandria  divides  the  Christian  books  into  the  Gospel, 
the  Apostles,  —  or  “the  Apostle,”  —  and  the  Prophets.5  “Take 
up  the  Epistle  of  the  blessed  Paul  the  Apostle,”  writes  Clement  of 

Rome  to  the  Corinthian  Church.6  It  is  “the  voice  of  God,”  Justin 

« 

affirms,  which  Christians  believe,  —  that  voice  “  which  is  both 
spoken  again  through  the  Apostles  of  Christ  and  proclaimed  to 
us  by  the  prophets.”  7  “The  preaching  of  the  Church,”  Irenaeus 
declares,  “  is  on  all  sides  consistent  and  continues  like  itself,  and 
hath  its  testimony  from  the  prophets  and  apostles.”8  When 
Hegesippus  found  in  the  churches  which  he  visited  the  doctrine 
taught  by  “the  law  and  the  prophets  and  the  Lord,”9  we  cannot 
be  sure,  although  it  is  possible,  that  other  New  Testament  writings 
besides  the  Gospels  are  referred  to.10  The  “  Memorabilia  ”  of 
which  Justin  speaks,  and  of  which  he  says  that  they  were  written 

1  See  Col.  iv.  16.  The  Ep.  to  the  Ephesians  may  have  been  addressed  to 
the  circle  of  churches  in  Asia  Minor.  See  Weiss,  Einl.  in  d.  N.  T.,  p.  261. 

2  Hippolytus,  Hcer.  Ref.  VII.  xiii.,  xv.,  xiv. 

3  2  Peter  iii.  16.  4  Phil.  5,  9. 

5  Strom.  III.  455  (ed.  Potter),  V.  561,  VI.  659,  676,  VII.  757,  IV.  475. 
See  Reuss,  Hist,  of  the  N.  T.,  II.  303. 

6  1  Ep.  3.  8  Iren.  III.  24,  1. 

7  Dial.  1 19.  9  Euseb.  H.  E.  IV.  22. 

10  See  Lightfoot,  Galatians ,  p.  319. 


74 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


by  Apostles  and  their  companions  and  were  read  on  Sunday  in  the 
meetings  of  the  churches  in  city  and  country,  were  the  Gospels, 
and  the  evidence  that  they  embraced  the  Four  of  the  Canon  is 
convincing.  That  any  other  evangelical  narrative  besides  these 
is  referred  to  by  him  under  this  title  cannot  be  safely  inferred.1 
Marcion  made  up  a  canon  composed  of  a  mutilated  Gospel  of 
Luke  and  ten  Epistles  of  Paul.  It  is  not  at  all  probable  that  he 
was  the  first  to  set  about  a  work  of  this  kind.  In  relation  to  the 
subject  before  us,  the  Muratorian  Fragment,  which  was  probably 
composed  about  170  or  180,  is  an  invaluable  monument.  It  is 
clear  that  it  contained  all  of  the  New  Testament  books  except 
1  John,  1  Peter,  the  Epistle  of  James,  2  Peter,  and  the  Epistle  to 
the  Hebrews.  1  John  is  quoted  at  another  place  in  the  Fragment. 
The  only  book  added  is  the  Apocalypse  of  Peter,  which  is  said, 
however,  not  to  be  universally  received.2  In  the  Peshito,  which 
represents  the  Canon  of  the  Syrian  Church  at  the  end  of  the  second 
century,  there  are  wanting  only  2  Peter,  2  and  3  John,  Jude,  and 
the  Apocalypse.  From  the  way  in  which  the  collections  in  each 
case  were  brought  together,  it  could  not  be  expected  that  the  con¬ 
tents  would  be  the  same  in  all  of  them.  The  bare  fact  of  the 
omission  of  books  here  or  there  does  not  warrant  an  unfavorable 
verdict  respecting  their  origin  and  claims.  In  the  early  part  of 
the  third  century,  Tertullian,  Clement  and  Origen  give  ample  tes¬ 
timony  to  the  existence  and  acceptance  by  the  churches  of  a  New 
Testament  Canon.  Yet  the  second  part  of  the  Canon,  that  which 
follows  the  four  Gospels,  was  not  inclosed  by  definite  lines.  The 
criteria  for  deciding  what  books  should  be  considered  inspired  and 
normative  had  not  been  determined.  While,  therefore,  the  New 
Testament  Canon,  when  Irenaeus  wrote,  or  in  the  last  decades  of 
the  second  century,  had  attained  to  an  equal  authority  with  the 
Canon  of  the  Old  Testament,  there  were  still  open  questions 
respecting  the  books  to  be  included  in  it.  Its  boundary  was 
unsettled.  A  century  later,  as  we  learn  from  the  report  of  Euse¬ 
bius,  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  the  Apocalypse,  James,  2  and  3 
John,  2  Peter,  and  Jude  were  not  universally  received.  There 

1  See  my  Grounds  of  Theistic  and  Christian  Belief  p.  190  sq.  It  is  prob¬ 
able  that  the  apocryphal  Gospel  of  Peter  is  not  referred  to  by  Justin.  See 
Salmon,  Int.  to  the  N.  T.  (7th  ed.),  p.  587  sq. 

2  For  a  correct  text  of  the  Fragment,  see  Westcott,  Hist,  of  the  Canon , 
App.  C. 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


75 


were  two  considerations  which  were  practically  influential  in  the 
ultimate  decision  of  doubtful  points  relating  to  the  limits  of  the 
Canon.  The  first  was  the  historical  test.  Was  the  authorship 
of  books  apostolic,  or,  if  not,  did  their  authors  have  such  a  relation 
to  Apostles  as  to  raise  their  books  to  the  level  of  the  Apostles’ 
writings?  Secondly,  had  the  contents  of  a  given  book  such  a 
character,  such  a  spirituality  and  elevation,  as  to  make  it  worthy 
of  this  rank?  In  a  word,  the  test  was  partly  external,  and  partly 
internal.  By  the  use  of  these  tests,  certain  books,  as  the  Epistle 
of  Clement  and  the  Shepherd  of  Hermas,  which  for  a  considerable 
time  were  not  unfrequently  read  in  churches,  were  dropped  from 
the  recognized  body  of  authoritative  Scriptures. 

According  to  the  legend  which  originated  among  the  Alex¬ 
andrian  Jews,  the  seventy  authors  of  the  Septuagint  version  were, 
each  of  them  writing  independently  of  the  others,  inspired  to 
make  the  same  translation.  A  similar  conception  of  the  passiv¬ 
ity  of  the  human  mind  when  inspired  with  the  visions  of  prophecy 
prevailed  among  the  heathen.  So  the  relation  of  the  divine 
Spirit  to  the  soul  was  conceived  by  Plotinus.  It  was  natural 
that  a  like  extreme  view  should  be  entertained  by  Christian 
teachers.  The  Alexandrian  legend  is  accepted  as  true  by  Ire- 
naeus.1  Athenagoras,2  Theophilus,3  and  Tertullian4  describe  the 
prophets  as  organs  of  the  Spirit,  who  are  moved  upon  as  are 
the  flute  or  the  lyre.  The  Montanists  held  to  ecstatic  inspiration. 
Tertullian  made  the  ecstatic  condition  the  characteristic  of  the 
inspired  state.5  The  position  of  the  Montanists  on  this  point 
was  disputed  by  orthodox  opposers,  or  possibly  by  Miltiades. 
As  regards  the  inspiration  of  the  New  Testament  writers,  Irenaeus 
rejects  the  theory  of  passivity.  Notwithstanding  his  belief  in 
verbal  inspiration,  he  accounts  for  the  transpositions  of  words 
in  Paul  by  the  “ velocity”  of  his  utterance,  and  the  vehemence 
of  his  spirit.6  The  Alexandrian  writers,  Clement  and  Origen, 
taught  that  the  New  Testament  writers  were  in  the  conscious 
exercise  of  their  own  powers.  Origen  says  of  the  prophets  that 
the  Spirit’s  influence  made  their  own  minds  clearer.7  Origen 

1  Iren.  III.  21,  2.  2  Embassy,  7. 

3  Ad  Autol.  II.  9.  4  Adv.  Marc.  IV.  22. 

5  “  Amentia,”  “  excidat  sensu,”  are  his  terms  of  description. 

G  Adv.  Hcer.  III.  7,  2.  “Spiritus”  signifies  the  Apostle’s  own  mind. 

7  C.  Cels  urn,  VII.  4;  Comm,  on  John,  T.  I.  c.  v. 


76 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


ascribes  the  peculiarities  of  style  in  the  New  Testament  authors 
and  their  linguistic  errors  to  their  natural  traits.  Human  agency 
was  thus  made  one  of  the  factors  in  the  production  of  the  Apos¬ 
tolic  writings.  He  held  to  a  difference  in  the  degree  of  inspira¬ 
tion  among  the  sacred  writers.  The  inspiration  of  the  Apostles 
was  not  the  same  as  that  of  the  prophets.  In  the  former  are  many 
passages  which  spring  from  no  immediate  divine  influence.  Yet 
the  New  Testament  writers  were  shielded  from  every  kind  of  error. 

In  the  interpretation  of  the  Scriptures,  the  Fathers,  not  only 
Irenseus  and  Tertullian,  but  still  more  the  Alexandrian  teachers, 
disprove  the  sophistical  and  fanciful  exegesis  of  the  Gnostics  by 
appealing  to  tradition  as  a  witness  to  its  error.  The  contents 
of  the  “rule  of  faith”  were  known  to  be  accordant  with  the 
Scriptures,  because  the  doctrines  affirmed  in  it  had  been  handed 
down  in  the  churches.  Hence  no  interpretation  at  variance  with 
these  doctrines  could  be  correct.  There  was  this  barrier  against 
erroneous  interpretation.  The  characteristic  fault  of  the  orthodox 
interpreters  was  their  allegorical  exegesis.  This  method  of  under¬ 
standing  the  Sacred  Writers  was  derived  from  the  Jews.  It  was 
generally  adopted,  but  was  carried  to  the  farthest  extent  by  the 
Alexandrian  School,  as  it  was  in  Alexandria  that  Jewish  allegoriz¬ 
ing  had  flourished  most. 

III.  The  tradition  of  Apostolic  teaching  came  to  be  considered 
as  under  the  special  guardianship  of  the  line  of  bishops,  and  the 
unity  of  the  Church  to  be  secured  through  the  unity  of  the  epis¬ 
copate.  Clement  of  Rome  —  with  whom  ‘  bishop  *  and  ‘  presby¬ 
ter  ’  are  one  and  the  same  —  tells  us  that  the  office  of  “the  episco¬ 
pate”  was  instituted  by  the  Apostles,  who  appointed  presbyters 
as  ministers  in  each  church  and,  to  prevent  contests  later,  pre¬ 
scribed  that  “other  approved  men”  should  succeed  them.  Pres¬ 
byters  who  were  appointed  by  the  Apostles,  or  by  other  men  of 
weight  (ZWoyi/iuv) ,  with  the  consent  of  the  whole  church,  ought 
not  to  be  ejected  from  the  ministry  without  good  cause.1  An 
uninterrupted  succession  was  secured  by  a  mixture  of  appoint¬ 
ment  and  popular  election.  The  precedence  of  the  bishop  over 
the  presbyters  had  arisen  gradually.  A  certain  superintendence 
was  exercised  by  James  at  Jerusalem,  which  was  probably  not 
without  influence  as  an  example.2  Clement  of  Alexandria 

1  Clem.  Ep.  ad  loc.,  XLII,  XLIV. 

2  According  to  Hegesippus  (Euseb.  II.  E.  III.  ii),  another  relative  of 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


77 


records  a  tradition  that  the  change  whereby  the  bishop  was 
endued  with  higher  authority  than  the  presbyters  associated 
with  him  took  place  in  the  Asia  Minor  churches,  under  the 
direction  of  the  Apostle  John.1  The  same  tradition  is  implied 
in  Tertullian.2  The  early  episcopacy  where  it  existed,  as  we 
see  from  the  Epistles  of  Ignatius,  was  valued  as  a  means  of 
preventing  division  and  preserving  order.  It  was  local,  not 
diocesan,  and  it  was  purely  governmental.  At  as  late  a  period 
as  the  age  of  Irenseus,  a  sacerdotal  function  was  not  yet  as¬ 
cribed  to  it.  If  there  was  a  bishop  at  Philippi  who  was  distin¬ 
guished  from  other  presbyters  in  that  church  when  Polycarp  wrote 
his  Epistle  to  the  Philippians,  the  distinction  between  the  two 
offices  was  so  slight  as  to  be  deemed  by  him  not  worthy  of  notice.3 
The  Epistle  of  Clement  of  Rome  to  the  Corinthians  is  of  such  a 
character  that  allusion  would  certainly  have  been  made  to  the  office 
of  bishop  had  such  an  office,  raised  above  that  of  the  presbyters, 
existed  then  at  Corinth.  It  is  a  letter  of  one  church  to  another. 
The  author  makes  no  reference  to  himself  as  bishop.  He  makes 
no  mention  of  himself  at  all.  The  recently  discovered  Didache 
shows  that  episcopacy  had  not  spread  in  the  region  where  this 
book  was  in  use.4  Jerome’s  statement  respecting  the  church  at 
Alexandria  admits  of  no  reasonable  interpretation  except  that 
which  points  to  an  original  identity  of  the  bishop  and  presbyter. 
This  he  asserts  to  have  originally  existed  in  the  churches.5  It  was 
long  recognized  at  Alexandria  in  the  appointment,  by  the  presby¬ 
ters,  when  a  bishop  died,  of  one  of  their  own  number,  to  take  his 

Jesus,  Simeon,  succeeded  James.  The  choice  was  still  from  the  family  of 
Jesus. 

1  Quis  Div.  Salv.  42.  2  Adv.  Mar  cion ,  IV.  5* 

3  Instead  of  there  being  a  vacancy,  it  is  “more  probable  that  the  ecclesias¬ 
tical  organization  there  was  not  yet  fully  developed.”  Lightfoot,  Ignatius 
and  Polycarp ,  P.  I.  Vol.  I.  578. 

4  “  Episcopacy  has  not  yet  become  universal.”  Lightfoot,  Apostolic 
Fathers ,  p.  216.  The  reference  of  Ignatius  ( Eph .  iii.)  to  “bishops  established 
in  the  farthest  parts  ”  (rara  rd  irlpaTa)  cannot  be  pressed  in  opposition 
to  specific  facts.  If  it  were  stronger  than  it  is,  it  might  not  be  more  of 
an  hyperbole  than  Justin’s  assertion  as  to  the  spread  of  the  Gospel  (Dial. 
1 1 7),  or  even  the  Apostle  Paul’s  language  (/  Thess.  i.  8)  on  the  spread  of  the 
faith  of  the  Thessalonians  “  in  every  place,”  or  the  same  Apostle  s  language 
in  Col.  i.  6  or  in  Rom.  i.  8.  On  this  expression  of  Ignatius  see  Lightfoot ,  Ignat, 
and  Poly  carp,  Vol.  I.  p.  381. 

5  The  passages  are  cited  in  Gieseler,  I.  iii.  §  34,  n.  1. 


78 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


place.  If  there  was  any  ordination  or  consecration,  it  is  implied 
that  it  was  by  those  who  selected  him.1  It  is  one  of  a  great 
variety  of  proofs  tending  to  show  that  the  episcopate  was  de¬ 
veloped  out  of  the  presbytery,  and  began  in  a  simple  presidency 
in  the  board  of  presbyters.  Its  beginnings,  however,  were  very 
early,  not  improbably  within  the  lifetime  of  some  of  the  Apostles, 
and  the  spread  of  the  primitive,  rudimental  form  of  the  episcopate 
was  so  rapid  that  it  was  not  very  long  before  it  became  universal.2 
In  the  latter  part  of  the  second  century  it  was  usual  to  assume 
that  existing  ecclesiastical  arrangements  were  of  Apostolic  origin. 
This  habit  is  illustrated  in  the  erroneous  assumption  by  Irenseus 
that  it  was  bishops  and  presbyters,  and  not  presbyter-bishops,  as 
Luke  plainly  relates,  who  met  the  Apostle  Paul  at  Miletus  (Acts 
xx.  17  sq.).3  Bishops  are  looked  upon  as  the  guardians  of 
Apostolic  doctrine.  Importance  is  attached  to  the  idea  of  an 

1  Mr.  Gore  questions  the  correctness  of  Jerome.  But  Mr.  Gore  is  not  will¬ 
ing  to  stake  his  view  of  Apostolic  succession  on  the  validity  of  the  doubt.  He 
falls  back  on  the  supposition  that  the  episcopal  office  may  have  been  com¬ 
mitted  to  presbyters  by  their  ordination  (see  Gore’s  Ministry  of  the  Christian 
Church ,  pp.  143  sq.,  72  sq.).  This  view  makes  room  for  a  temporary  jure 
divino  Presbyterianism. 

2  A  theory  as  to  the  offices  in  the  early  Church,  which  is  in  some  respects 
peculiar,  was  proposed  by  Hatch  and  is  advocated  in  a  somewhat  modified 
form  by  Harnack.  It  is  held  by  him  that  at  the  outset,  in  the  Gentile 
churches,  the  presbytery  —  the  “  elders  ”  —  were  not  technically  officials,  but 
simply  the  older  men.  To  these  was  left  the  work  of  pastoral  guidance  and 
discipline.  There  were  bishops  who,  in  connection  with  the  subordinate 
officers,  the  deacons,  were  appointed  to  see  to  the  cultus,  especially  to  the 
receiving  and  distributing  of  alms.  Later  in  the  Apostolic  age,  it  is  held, 
the  presbyters  became  a  select  official  body.  The  bishops  sat  with  them. 
According  to  Hatch,  the  members  of  the  body  thus  constituted  were  called 
indiscriminately  “  elders  ”  or  “  bishops .”  So  much  is  evident  from  Acts  xx. 
17  sq.,  Titus  i.  5,  7,  1  Tim.  iii.  1,  8.  The  standing  of  the  bishops  increased 
with  the  increasing  importance  of  their  functions.  Harnack  thinks  that  the 
bishop  owed  his  advancement  largely  to  his  being  considered  to  have,  as  the 
apostles,  prophets  and  teachers  had  previously,  a  relation  to  the  entire  Church, 
in  contrast  with  the  local  relation  of  the  elders.  (See  Harnack’s  Texte  u. 
Untersuchungen,  etc.,  II.  140.)  How  one  of  the  bishops  rose  above  the 
others  is  not  made  clear.  For  the  exposition  of  the  theory,  see  Hatch’s  The 
Organization  of  the  Early  Christian  Churches,  and  the  additions  of  Harnack 
to  his  German  translation  of  this  book;  also  Harnack’s  discussion  just  referred 
to.  The  theory  has  to  encounter  quite  serious  difficulties.  Some  of  the  most 
weighty  of  them  are  stated  by  Weizsacker,  Theol.  Lit.  Zeit.,  1884,  p.  312. 

3  Adv.  Har.  III.  14,  2. 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


79 


unbroken  chain  of  succession.  It  was  like  the  Roman  idea  of 
the  continuity  of  an  office,  the  prerogatives  of  which  were  con¬ 
ceived  to  pass  down  without  a  break  from  each  incumbent  to 
his  successor.  Hegesippus  was  interested  in  tracing  the  succes¬ 
sion  of  bishops  at  Rome  and  elsewhere.1  He  conferred  with 
bishops  respecting  the  traditions  of  doctrine  in  their  respective 
churches.  It  was  not  a  historical  work  that  he  wrote,  but  a  com¬ 
pilation  of  “  the  plain  tradition  of  Apostolic  doctrine.”  2  Irenaeus 
attributes  to  bishops  a  certain  gift  of  grace  for  the  custody  of  the 
truth,  a  function  of  which  Ignatius  has  nothing  to  say.  In  Clem¬ 
ent  of  Rome  the  providing  for  an  orderly  succession,  as  already 
said,  was  to  keep  off  divisions.  Irenaeus  goes  so  far  as  to  say  that 
the  bishops  standing  in  the  succession  have  received  “  a  sure  gift 
of  the  truth  ”  —  “  charisma  veritatis  certum.” 3  Hence  separatists 
who  withdraw  from  the  “  principal  succession  ”  are  to  be  looked 
upon  as  heretics  and  schismatics.  They  have  broken  away  from 
the  truth.  It  is  an  “  incorrupt  guardianship  ”  by  which  Christian 
teaching  and  sound  exposition  of  the  Scriptures  have  come  down 
to  us  in  the  Church,  with  its  “  several  successions  of  bishops.” 4 
The  bishop  is  no  longer  the  mere  head  of  a  local  church ;  he  has 
a  relation  to  the  Church  Universal.  He  has  a  part  in  the  episco¬ 
pate,  which  is  one  and  single.  The  truth  is  guarded  by  the 
Church  as  a  “  treasure  in  a  precious  vessel.”  Within  the  Church 
is  the  Holy  Spirit.  “  Where  the  Church  is,  there  is  the  Spirit  of 
God,  and  where  the  Spirit  of  God,  there  is  the  Church.”5 6  It  was 
an  easy,  yet  a  marked  step,  in  advance  of  Irenaeus,  when  Cyprian, 
in  his  book  on  the  “  Unity  of  the  Church,”  not  only  gives  in¬ 
creased  emphasis  to  the  conception  of  Irenaeus,  but  attributes  a 
distinct  sacerdotal  function  to  the  bishops.  Phrases  in  Tertullian 
and  Origen  that  might  seem  to  sanction  a  like  view,  are  shown  by 
other  passages  not  to  bear  this  interpretation.0 

1  Euseb.  H.E.  IV.  22.  Cf.  c.  n. 

2  Ibid.  IV.  8.  See  Weizsacker’s  remarks  in  Herzog  and  Plitt’s  Real- 
Encycl.  d.  Theol.  u.  Kir  die,  V.,  sub  voce  Hegesippus. 

3  Irenaeus,  IV.  26,  2. 

4  Ibid.  IV.  33,  8.  If  Clement  and  Origen  broach  a  like  view,  they  neither 
rigidly  nor  uniformly  adhere  to  it.  See  the  passages  in  Gieseler,  I.  iii.  c.  4,  §  67. 

5  Ibid.  III.  24,  1. 

6  See  Lightfoot,  Dissertations ,  pp.  222,  224.  Expressions  of  Hippolytus 
( H<xr .  Ref.,  Proem)  may  imply  that  sacerdotal  terms  in  reference  to  the 
clergy  were  coming  into  vogue. 


8o 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


The  exalted  position  of  Rome,  in  comparison  with  other 
churches,  consists,  according  to  Irenseus  and  Tertullian,  in  the 
signal  advantages  belonging  to  the  Roman  Church  for  the  custody 
of  the  doctrines  transmitted  by  the  Apostles.  The  trustworthiness 
of  the  traditions  preserved  there,  Irenaeus  tells  us,  is  preeminent.1 
There  the  great  Apostles,  Peter  and  Paul,  had  taught  and  died. 
The  idea  that  Peter  was  the  first  bishop  of  Rome  is  first  met 
with  not  far  from  the  end  of  the  second  century.  The  gradual 
elevation  of  Peter  to  this  post  of  dignity,  and  the  partial  obscura¬ 
tion  of  Paul,  spring  from  no  opposition  *  to  the  latter,  no  wish 
to  cast  discredit  upon  him.  The  special  controversy  which 
the  Apostle  Paul  had  carried  forward  with  so  much  energy  had 
ceased  to  have  any  practical  interest.  The  commission  to  the 
Twelve  to  proclaim  the  Gospel  through  the  Roman  world,  and 
the  relation  of  Peter  to  the  Twelve  as  their  head,  were  prominent 
in  the  thoughts  of  Christians.  Justin  remarks  on  the  “  twelve 
obscure  men  who  went  out  from  Jerusalem  to  proclaim  the  truth 
to  the  race  of  mankinds 2  To  the  mission  of  the  Twelve,  Aris¬ 
tides  makes  reference  in  the  Fragment  of  his  Apology.  The 
mission  of  the  Twelve,  their  unity  in  doctrine,  an  oecumenical 
Church,  the  episcopal  precedence  of  Peter,  Rome  as  the  seat  of  his 
bishopric,  the  corresponding  rank  of  his  successors  in  comparison 
with  other  bishops,  — -  these  formed  a  group  of  conceptions  closely 
connected.  Cyprian,  who  did  not  hesitate  on  occasions  to  assert 
his  episcopal  independence  even  in  reference  to  Rome,  could 
still  speak  of  Rome  as  the  “See  of  Peter,”  “  the  principal  church, 
whence  sacerdotal  unity  proceeded.”3  In  the  Didache ,  the 
Apostles  (or  Evangelists),  prophets  and  teachers,  who  are  bound 
to  no  one  place  of  abode,  but  stand  in  relation  to  all  the  churches, 
hold  the  chief  place  of  honor.  To  quote  from  Lightfoot,  “  the 
itinerant  prophetic  order  has  not  yet  been  displaced  by  the 
permanent  localized  ministry.”4  But  the  second  century  wit¬ 
nesses  a  remarkable  change.  It  is  this  permanent  ministry,  with 
the  bishops  at  their  head,  who  are  foremost.  To  them  is  attrib¬ 
uted  a  special  illumination  by  the  Spirit.  Not  a  mere  local,  but 

1  This  is  the  meaning  of  the  noted  passage  (III.  3,  2)  on  the  impossibility 
that  other  traditions  should  disagree  with  the  traditions  of  the  Church  at  Rome. 

2  Apol.  I.  39. 

3  “  Unde  unitas  sacerdotalis  exorta  est.”  Epist.  xii.  14,  ad  Cornelium 

Migne,  pp.  317,  321.  4  Apostol.  Fathers ,  p.  215. 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


8l 


a  catholic,  relation  is  ascribed  to  the  chief  pastors.  They  fill  the 
station  vacated  by  the  Apostles  chosen  by  Jesus.  The  Synods, 
which  began  to  be  held  in  opposition  to  Montanism,  increase 
their  dignity.  A  sharp  line  of  distinction  is  drawn  between  the 
clergy  and  the  laity.  The  former  constitute  an  order  elevated 
in  rank  above  the  plebs.  It  is  Tertullian  who  first  applied  these 
terms  to  the  ministry  and  the  people,  although  he  says  that  it 
is  the  authority  of  the  Church  which  has  made  the  difference 
between  the  two.1  Moreover,  to  carry  back  to  the  first  centuries 
the  associations  of  diocesan  episcopacy,  would  be  an  anachronism. 
The  position  of  the  bishop  of  a  city  “  in  many  respects  resembled 
that  of  the  rector  of  a  parish  surrounded  by  his  assistant  clergy 
rather  than  that  of  the  modern  bishop  of  a  diocese,  containing 
perhaps  several  large  towns.”  2  During  several  centuries,  it  was 
the  custom  for  presbyters  to  sit  with  bishops  in  the  synods  and 
to  take  an  active  part  in  their  proceedings. 

In  the  last  decades  of  the  second  century  the  Ancient  Catholic 
Church  thus  emerges  to  view, —  a  single,  visible,  compactly  unite<J 
Body,  with  officers  succeeding  to  their  stations  under  fixed  rules, 
and  conceived  to  be  endowed  in  virtue  of  their  office  with  exalted 
functions  committed  to  them  by  Christ.  Whether  this  system 
was  a  normal  and  wholesome  development  of  the  Christianity  of 
the  Apostolic  age,  is  a  question  on  which  men’s  minds  are  still 
divided.  One  thing  is  certain ;  it  was  a  change  momentous 
in  its  results. 

It  was  a  change  that  awoke  manifestations  of  repugnance.  Mon¬ 
tanism  unquestionably  partook  of  the  character  of  a  reaction  against 
ecclesiasticism,  or  institutional  Christianity.  It  was,  however,  a 
reaction  pushed  by  its  promoters  to  an  extreme.  It  gave  rise  to 
an  excess  of  enthusiasm  which  had  no  warrant  in  the  precedents 
of  the  Apostolic  age.  But  Montanism  was  one  form  of  protest 
against  restraints  upon  freedom  of  utterance  under  the  influences 
of  the  Spirit ;  it  was  a  demand  for  stricter  discipline  in  the 
Church,  for  more  disconnection  with  the  world  and  its  ways ;  it 
was  a  revival  of  apocalyptic  hopes  ;  it  was  an  uprising  in  behalf  of 
ideals  which  it  was  felt  had  been  realized  in  the  Apostolic  age,  but 
which  were  now  vanishing  under  the  blight  of  officialism.  Mon- 
tanus,  the  leader,  appeared  in  Phrygia  shortly  after  the  middle  of 
the  second  century.  His  movement  embraced  the  proclamation 

1  De  Exhort.  Cast.  7.  Cheetham,  Ch.  History ,  p.  128. 


G 


82 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


of  himself  as  the  inspired  organ  of  the  promised  Paraclete,  and 
the  announcement  of  the  restoration  of  the  primitive  gifts  of  the 
Spirit.  The  Father  and  the  Son  were  now  really  to  take  up 
their  abode  in  the  souls  of  believers.  Prophets  and  prophetesses 
were  again  supernaturally  inspired  to  utter  heaven-given  messages, 
joined  with  Montanus  were  two  prophetesses  conceived  to  be  thus 
illuminated,  Prisca  and  Maximilla.  The  Lord  Himself  was  shortly 
to  come  in  person,  and  to  establish  His  kingdom  at  Pepuza  in 
Phrygia.  In  this  place  Christians  were  summoned  by  the  new 
prophets  to  assemble.  To  prepare  for  this  kingdom,  an  austere 
strictness  of  life  was  enjoined.  Celibacy  was  to  be  practiced, 
fasting  was  to  be  strict  and  was  to  be  regulated  by  fixed  rules. 
Delinquents  were  to  be  subjected  to  severe  ecclesiastical  penalties. 
Such  as  were  excommunicated  from  the  Church  were  not  to  be 
received  back.  Montanism  spread  in  Asia  Minor  and  in  other 
places.  It  attracted  a  qualified  sympathy  in  the  churches  of 
Southern  Gaul,  and  was  regarded  for  a  time  at  Rome  with  con¬ 
siderable  favor.  In  North  Africa  especially,  it  won  numerous  con¬ 
verts,  of  whom  Tertullian  is  the  most  famous.  Not  a  few,  and 
among  them  Irenseus,  were  not  disposed  to  question  the  reality  of 
the  revised  gift  of  prophecy,  but  rejected  the  extravagant  notions 
which  the  Montanists  associated  with  their  tenet  on  this  subject. 
Montanism  was  condemned  so  far  as  it  was  unfriendly  to  the  insti¬ 
tutional  system,  which  was  too  firmly  established  to  be  weakened. 
The  ground  taken  by  Tertullian  was  that  the  power  of  binding  and 
loosing  belonged  not  to  the  bishop,  but  that  to  the  prophet  as  the 
organ  of  the  Spirit  it  belonged  to  determine  whether  the  repenting 
offender  in  any  case  is  forgiven  of  God.  He  may  be  thus  forgiven 
without  being  received  back  into  the  communion  of  the  visible 
Church,  which  is  bound  in  its  discipline  to  prevent  in  the  future, 
as  far  as  it  can,  transgressions  of  the  same  character. 

The  contests  in  the  Church  on  this  matter  of  the  discipline  of  the 
excommunicated  or  of  those  deserving  this  sentence,  and  on  the 
connected  question  of  the  authority  of  the  bishop,  were  strenuous 
and  long  continued.  It  was  against  the  lax  principles  of  Callistus, 
the  Roman  bishop  (217-222),  respecting  the  treatment  of  such  as 
had  fallen  into  mortal  sin  that  Hippolytus  led  a  schismatical  party. 
It  was.  a  resistance  to  what  was  considered  a  secularizing  spirit 
that  had  crept  into  the  Church  along  with  its  growth  in  numbers. 
In  North  Africa,  Cyprian,  who  was  at  first  a  rigorist  on  the  disci- 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


83 


plinary  question,  engaged  in  a  struggle  against  the  schismatics, 
led  by  Felicissimus,  who  contended  that  the  certificates  of  faithful 
confessors  of  the  faith  should  secure  readmission  to  the  Church 
for  such  as  had  forsaken  the  faith  in  the  Decian  persecution. 
The  formidable  schism  of  Novatian  was  in  opposition  to  Corne¬ 
lius,  Bishop  of  Rome,  who  was  chosen  to  this  office  in  251,  and 
was  on  the  side  of  leniency.  Cyprian  was  induced  to  favor  on  the 
whole  the  cause  of  Cornelius.  The  Novatians  made  a  distinction 
between  forgiveness  by  God  and  reception  into  the  communion  of 
the  Church.  The  one  might  take  place  without  the  other.  The 
Church  must  guard  its  purity  with  sedulous  care.  It  must  keep 
its  doors  shut  against  those  who  had  been  guilty  of  a  mortal  sin. 
This  tenet  was  a  direct  denial  of  the  doctrine  that  without  the 
Church  there  is  no  salvation.  Numerous  Novatian  churches  were 
formed.  They  sprung  up  in  almost  all  parts  of  the  Empire.  The 
broader  theory,  which  laid  stress  on  the  truth  that  the  tares  must 
grow  with  the  wheat,  and  made  higher  claims  for  the  hierarchy, 
prevailed.  But  it  was  not  until  after  the  Donatist  controversy, 
near  the  end  of  the  fourth  and  in  the  beginning  of  the  fifth  cen¬ 
tury,  that  the  catholic  and  hierarchical  view  gained  a  fully  decisive 
victory.  The  exclusion  of  the  Montanist  societies  was  only  one 
step  in  the  advance  towards  it.  But  Montanism  left  behind  a 
marked  influence  upon  the  spirit  and  polity  of  the  Catholic 
Church.  The  clergy  were  brought  under  severe  rules  of  disci¬ 
pline  from  which  the  laity  were  exempt.  An  impetus  was  given 
to  the  tendency  to  recognize  two  types  of  Christian  life  and  char¬ 
acter,  the  lower  or  merely  salvable  type  and  the  ascetic'  type, 
standing  on  a  higher  plane  as  to  sanctity  of  conduct  and  the 
prospect  of  heavenly  rewards. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  CATHOLIC  DOCTRINE  IN  THE  ASIA  MINOR  SCHOOL  :  IREN^EUS, 

MELITO  OF  SARDIS - IN  THE  NORTH  AFRICAN  SCHOOL  :  TERTULLIAN 

- THE  ALEXANDRIAN  CHRISTIAN  PHILOSOPHY  :  CLEMENT 

Iren^eus  was  born  in  Asia  Minor.  With  the  traditions  in  the 
churches  there  he  is  familiar.  His  type  of  thought  is  not  with¬ 
out  traces  of  the  Johannine  teaching,  the  influence  of  which 
prevailed  in  the  region  where  he  spent  his  youth.  In  his  appre¬ 
ciation  of  the  truth  of  redemption  through  the  incarnate  Christ, 
the  truth  to  which  is  given  the  central  place  in  his  system, 
he  rises  above  the  point  of  view  of  the  Greek  Apologists. 
Nevertheless,  in  his  writings  elements  akin  to  their  more  rational¬ 
izing  apprehension  of  Christian  doctrine  mingle  here  and  there 
with  more  positive  and  profound  interpretations  of  the  Gospel. 
And  side  by  side  with  views  which  are  incongruous  in  their 
tendency  he  admits  the  chiliastic  tradition  in  Eschatology.  The 
antagonist  of  Gnostic  speculation,  Irenaeus,  in  the  cast  of  his 
mind,  is  intensely  practical.  We  are  not  to  swerve  from  the 
plain  teaching  of  the  Scriptures  and  from  the  rule  of  faith  which 
embodies  it  in  outline.1  That  is  his  maxim.  What  if  we 
cannot  discover  solutions  of  all  questions  ?  This  is  no  reason  for 
forsaking  what  is  plainly  taught.  “  Such  things  we  ought  to  leave 
to  God.”  Nature,  too,  is  full  of  mysteries.  What  causes  the  rise 
of  the  Nile  and  the  ebb  and  flow  of  the  ocean?  Instead  of 
prying  into  things  inscrutable  pertaining  to  God,  we  should  seek 
to  rise  to  Him  in  love  and  devotion.  Apostolic  teaching,  attested 
by  Scripture  and  tradition,  is  the  norm  of  faith.  The  divine 

essence  is  inconceivable.  Our  knowledge  of  God  is  relative. 

■* 

The  language  which  we  utter  concerning  Him  is  figurative.2 

1  Adv.  Hcer.  II.  27,  28.  2  Ibid .  II.  13,  3,  4. 

84 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


85 


God  creates  the  world  out  of  nothing.1  Sin  in  men  and  angels 
is  a  free  act.  Why  some  fall  and  others  do  not  is  a  mystery.2 
Yet  Irenaeus  suggests  that  in  order  to  train  men  to  avoid  evil 
and  cleave  to  the  good,  it  was  necessary  for  them  to  have  a  pre¬ 
liminary  experiment  of  both,  God  meantime  foreknowing  what 
would  occur  and  having  in  mind  His  plan  of  deliverance.3 
Punishment  is  the  necessary  consequence  of  sin.  It  is  provided 
for,  in  the  foresight  that  sin  would  come  in.4  There  is  no  inter¬ 
ference  with  human  freedom.  The  hardening  of  Pharaoh’s  heart 
is  not  a  direct  act  of  God.  It  is  the  incidental  result  of  Pharaoh’s 
own  character.  The  same  is  true  of  judicial  blindness  in  those 
who  reject  the  Gospel.5  Christ  is  the  only-begotten  Son  of  God, 
the  Logos,  through  whom  God  reveals  Himself.  He  was  forever 
with  the  Father.6  T|^ideaof  emanation  is  rejected.  The  mode 
of  the  generation  of  the  Son  is  incomprehensible.7  The  Logos  is 
included  in  the  divineurfeing,  but  the  distinction  of  the  immanent 
and  expressed  Word  i|b  not  admitted.  There  is  no  separation 
between  the  Son  and  the  Father,  yet  they  are  not  confounded. 
That  the  personal  distinction  of  Father  and  Son  is  eternal  is  not 
distinctly  affirmed,  but  it^Bnuplied.8  The  Floly  Spirit  is  likewise  • 
ever  with  the  Father.  It  is  “  the  Word  ^jjd  Wisdom,  Son  and 
Spirit,”  by  whom  and  in  whom  God  freely  does  all  things.9  The 
Holy  Spirit,  as  well  as  the  Son,  is  included  in  God.  As  there  is  a 
certain  subordination  of  the  Son  to  the  Father,  so  the  Spirit  is 
subordinate  to  both.10  But  the  special  offices  of  the  Spirit  are  left 
in  a  measure  indefinite.  The  incarnation  had  for  its  end  to  bring 
mankind  back  to  fellowship  with  God.  Through  sin  man  is 
alienated  from  God  and  made  a  prey  to  corruption  and  death. 

The  Son  of  God  becomes  man  in  order  to  reunite  God  and  man. 

It  is  not,  in  truth,  until  after  the  fall  that  the  union  of  man  to 
God  is,  in  and  through  Christ,  fully  realized.  “  It  became  the 
Mediator  between  God  and  man,  through  his  intimate  relation¬ 
ship  to  both  to  bring  both  into  friendship  and  concord,  and,  while 
presenting  man  to  God,  to  make  God  known  to  men.” 11  In  many 

1  Adv.  Hcer .  II.  28,  3;  30,  9.  7  Ibid.  II.  28,  4,  5. 

2  Ibid.  II.  28,  7.  8  See  Duncker,  Des heilig.  Iren.  Christol.,  p.  50sq. 

3  Ibid.  IV.  39,  I.  9  Irenoeus,  Adv.  Hcer.  IV.  20,  1. 

4  Ibid.  II.  28,  7.  10  Ibid.  I.  3,  5,  in  the  Greek  text.  See  Loofs,  p.  127. 

6  Ibid.  IV.  29,  30.  11  Ibid.  III.  18,  7. 

0  Ibid.  II.  30,  9;  III.  18,  I ;  II.  25,  3. 


86 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


ways  the  full  humanity  of  Christ  is  emphasized.  If  the  reality  of 
both  the  human  and  the  divine  nature  is  not  explicitly  affirmed, 
it  is  clearly  implied.  When,  in  insisting  on  the  unity  of  the 
person  of  Christ,  it  is  spoken  of  as  a  mixture  of  the  divine  and 
human,1  such  expressions  are  not  to  be  construed  as  implying  that 
there  was  literally  a  confusion  of  the  two.2  Christ,  the  Son  incar¬ 
nate,  is  the  second  head  of  the  race.  His  relation  to  mankind  is 
designated  as  a  recapitulation  By  this  it  is  meant  that  in  Christ 
there  is  a  restitution  and  renewal  of  the  race,  a  taking  up  anew 
of  the  development  at  the  point  where  it  was  broken  off  by  sin. 
The  term  includes  the  idea  that  the  incarnation  and  work  of  Christ 
exert  their  influence  backward  as  well  as  forward.  Mankind  in 
Christ  reverse  the  course  which  was  entered  upon  at  the  fall. 
There  is  a  renewal  of  allegiance  to  God,  a  renewal  and  consumma¬ 
tion  of  the  life  in  union  with  Him.  “  He  [Christ]  was  made  that 
which  we  are  that  He  might  make  us  completely  what  He  is.” 4 
This  is  the  supreme  end  which  He  has  in  view.  Hence  it  was 
necessary  for  Christ  to  go  through  the  successive  stages  of  human 
life,  from  infancy  onward,  that  He  might  sanctify  them  all.5  In 
the  conception  of  the  work  of  Christ'  There  are  blended,  without 
analytic  separation  iff:  the  author’s  mind,  the  two  elements  of 
redemption  and  reconciliation  or  atonement.  He  refers  to  the 
death  of  Christ  as  a  substitution  for  our  death.  He  speaks  of  the 
Lord  as  having  redeemed  us  with  His  own  blood,  and  given  His  soul 
for  our  souls  and  His  own  flesh  for  our  flesh.” G  He  gave  His  life 
as  a  “  ransom  ”  for  those  in  captivity.  His  death  was  the  salvation 
of  such  as  believe  in  Him.7  Yet  the  context  of  such  passages  in¬ 
dicates  that  the  perfecting  of  the  union  of  Christ  with  mankind,  and 
the  communion  of  man  with  God  which  is  thus  consummated,  is 
the  most  prominent  thought.  Christ  is  said  to  have  done  the  work 
of  a  High  Priest,  propitiating  God,  dying  that  man  might  come 
out  of  condemnation.8  But  this  bearing  of  the  Saviour’s  death  is 
not  dwelt  upon.  It  is  not  carried  out  in  any  definite  form.  The 
central  element  in  the  work  of  Christ  is  His  obedience,  whereby 

1  Adv.  Ilcer.  IV.  20,  4. 

2  See  v.  14,  1;  III.  17,  4.  Cf.  Loofs,  DG.  p.  94. 

3  On  this  term  and  the  conception  involved,  see  Duncker,  Des  heilig.  Iren . 
Christol.  p.  163  sq.  ;  also  Dorner,  Person  Christi,  I.  4S5  sq.  For  the  doctrine 
of  Irenoeus,  see  especially,  Adv.  Hcer.  III.  16,  6;  18,  1,  7;  V.  14,  2;  19,  1 ;  21,1. 

4  Adv.  Hcer.  V.  Pref.  G  Ibid.  V.  1,  2.  8  Ibid.  IV.  8,  2. 

5  Ibid.  II.  22,  4.  7  Ibid.  IV.  28,  3. 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


87 


the  disobedience  of  Adam  is  cancelled.  The  end  attained  as 
regards  men  is  the  destruction  of  sin  and  its  consequences,  the 
imparting  of  a  new  spiritual  life  which  carries  with  it  incorruption, 
salvation  from  death.  The  dominion  of  Satan  was  not  subverted 
by  force,  but  in  a  way  befitting  order  and  righteousness ;  that  is, 
by  a  moral  conquest  over  the  souls  enslaved  by  him.1  The 
“  ransom  ”  is  not  spoken  of  as  a  prize  given  to  Satan.  This  view 
comes  into  theology  at  a  later  day.  While,  therefore,  Irenseus 
appreciates  the  importance  of  the  death  of  Christ  and  conceives  it 
as  vicarious,  the  idea  of  a  penal  satisfaction  is  not  prominent. 
Yet  the  atonement  is  ow/  five  and  has  an  essential  place  in  the 
righteous  order  which  sm°nd&  invaded. 

The  view  taken  of  the  sacraments  in  Irenteus  is  in  keeping 
with  his  idea  of  the  external  Church  as  the  exclusive  dwelling- 
place  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  Regeneration  is  inseparably  associated 
with  baptism.  The  same  term  designates  the  rite  and  the  new 
birth  itself.  “  Baptism  is  our  new  birth  unto  God.”2  In  Baptism, 
we  are  regenerated.3  In  one  passage  there  is  some  reason  to 
think  that  the  baptism  of  infants  is  recognized.4  In  the  Lord’s 
Supper,  the  bread  after  its  consecration  “  is  no  longer  common 
bread,  but  a  Eucharist  constituted  of  two  things,  an  earthly  and 
a  heavenly.” 5  The  heavenly  element  in  the  bread  and  wine  is 
the  body  and  blood  which  the  divine  Logos  mysteriously  connects 
with  them.  Thus  the  bread  and  wine  of  the  sacrament  nourish 
in  us  a  life  out  of  which  springs  the  incorruptible  body  at  the 
Resurrection.  The  bread  and  wine  are  brought  to  God  as  an 
offering  with  a  prayer  of  thanks.  The  act  is  a  symbol  that  all 
that  the  believers  have,  and  not  a  tenth  alone,  is  to  be  brought  to 
God.G  The  later  idea  of  a  specific  offering  to  God  by  the  hands 
of  a  priest  is  not  involved  in  this  teaching.  “  Observing  the  law 
of  the  dead,”  Christ  descended  into  Hades,  where  He  abode  for 
three  days,  and  thither  His  fqllowers  likewise  descend.  I  hence 
they  come  forth  at  the  resurrection  of  the  body.”'  Irenseus 
holds  the  chiliastic  doctrine,  quoting  the  statement  of  Papias 

1  This  is  probably  the  sense  of  “  suadelam  ”  (in  VI.  1,  1).  See  Dorner 
(against  Baur),  Person  Christi ,  I.  p.  479  n. 

2  Adv.  liter.  I.  21,  1.  3  Ibid.  III.  17,  1. 

*  Ibid.  II.  22,  4.  See  Neander,  Church  History,  I.  31 1. 

5  Ibid.  IV.  8,  5.  7  Ibid.  IV.  32,  2. 

0  Ibid.  IV.  18,  2. 


88 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


relating  to  the  vineyard  with  its  colossal  grapes.1  The  punish¬ 
ment  of  the  wicked  is  eternal.  The  impression  that  Irenaeus 
teaches  the  doctrine  of  the  eventual  annihilation  of  the  wicked  is 
founded  on  a  misapprehension  of  the  meaning  which  he  attaches 
to  the  term  ‘  continuance  ’  and  to  certain  other  terms,  and  is 
contradicted  in  not  a  few  unambiguous  passages.2 

The  influence  of  that  ethical,  as  distinguished  from  evangeli¬ 
cal,  apprehension  of  the  Gospel,  which  we  have  noticed  in  the 
Apologists,  appears  here  and  there  in  Irenaeus.  This  is  seen  in 
the  peculiar  guilt  attached  to  sins  cry-omitted  after  baptism.  It 
is  seen  in  the  conception  of  faith  in  >Carn^;  ze  where  he  says  that 
the  eternal  reward  is  given  to  sudd1  lieve  Christ,  “  being 
righteous,”  —  adding,  “  Now  to  believe  Him  is  to  do  His  will.”3 
Faith  is  more  often  the  synonym  of  belief  in  the  truths  which  are 
brought  together  in  the  rule  of  faith,  or  the  word  is  used,  in  an 
objective  way,  to  denote  these  truths  collectively  considered. 
“  We  ought  to  fear,”  he  says,  “  lest  perchance,  after  the  knowl¬ 
edge  of  Christ,  we  do  something  which  is  not  pleasing  to  God, 
and  thus  have  no  further  remission  of  sins,  but  be  excluded  from 
His  kingdom.”4  There  are  two  phases  of  doctrine  in  Irenaeus. 
On  the  one  hand,  there  is  the  higher,  evangelical  conception  of 
the  new  life  through  the  incarnate  Son  in  whom  the  grace  of  the 
Father  is  revealed.  This  conception  has  gained  a  lodgment 
in  his  mind.  On  Ihe  other  hand,  there  are  the  traces  of  the 
“  moralism  ”  of  the  Apologists,  which  exalts  the  teaching  ele¬ 
ment  in  Christianity  and  makes  everything  depend  on  the  free 
choice  of  the  path  of  obedience.  There  is  a  corresponding  dif- 

1  Adv.  Heer.  V.  31,  2. 

2  The  opinion  that  Irenaeus  accepts  the  doctrine  of  “  conditional  immortal¬ 
ity  ”  rests  on  one  passage  (II.  34,  1,  2,  3),  where  “  continuance  ”  (perseveran- 
tia)  and  “  length  of  days  ”  are  said  to  be  the  exclusive  reward  of  the  righteous. 
But  “  life,”  “  length  of  days,”  “  perseverance,”  which  the  wicked  forfeit,  is  the 
better  life  which  comes  to  the  regenerate.  “  Separation  from  God  is  death  ”; 
it  is  the  rejection  of  the  good  things  of  God.  (See  V.  27,  2.  Cf.  V.  4,  3.) 
The  eternity  of  punishment  is  taught  in  various  places.  See,  especially,  IV. 
28,  I,  2;  also,  IV.  39,  4;  IV.  27,  4;  III.  23,  3.  In  one  of  the  Pfaffian  frag¬ 
ments  (XL.  ed.  Stieren,  p.  889),  it  is  said  that  Christ  is  to  come  to  destroy 
all  evil  and  to  reconcile  all  things  (reconcilianda  universa),  that  there  may 
be  an  end  of  all  impurities.  This  suggests,  not  annihilation,  but  restoration; 
but  it  is  a  paraphrase  of  Col.  i.  20,  and  probably  means  the  purification  of  the 
righteous.  Moreover,  the  genuineness  of  the  fragment  is  quite  doubtful. 

3  Adv.  liter.  IV.  6,  5.  4  Ibid.  IV.  27,  2. 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


89 


ference  in  the  explanations  given  of  the  relation  of  the  old  dis¬ 
pensation  to  the  new.  Now  the  Old  Testament  is  exalted  to  the 
place  of  equality  assigned  to  it  by  the  Apologists,  and  now  its 
subordinate,  preparatory  function  is  pointed  out.  The  source  of 
the  contrast  so  marked  in  Irenseus  would  appear  to  be  that,  not¬ 
withstanding  his  abundant  citations  from  Paul,  the  roots  of  his 
religious  life  were  not  in  the  distinctive  teaching  of  the  Apostle, 
to  the  core  of  which  he  did  not  penetrate  with  a  vivid  insight. 
The  whole  bent  of  Irenteus  was  practical.  His  attention  was  con¬ 
centrated  upon  the  defence  of  Christianity.1 

One  of  the  most  highly  esteemed  of  all  the  writers  of  the  Asia 
Minor  School  was  Melito,  Bishop  of  Sardis.2  His  literary  activity 
began  about  a.d.  150.  Unhappily,  of  his  numerous  works  there 
remain  only  a  few  fragments.  But  these  furnish  valuable  materi¬ 
als  for  the  History  of  Doctrine.  In  one  of  them,  it  is  said  that  the 
works  of  Christ  after  His  baptism  “  showed  His  godhead  concealed 
in  the  flesh.”  “  He  concealed  the  signs  of  His  godhead  ”  before 
His  baptism,  “  although  He  was  true  God  from  eternity.”  “  Being 
perfect  God  and  perfect  man,  He  assured  us  of  His  two  essences,” 3 
His  godhead  and  His  manhood.  Here  is  a  distinct  declaration 
that  in  Christ  there  were  two  natures,  nothing,  however,  being 
said  of  the  particular  mode  of  their  union.  In  another  fragment, 
the  genuineness  of  which  is  extremely  probable,  Christ  is  desig¬ 
nated  “  the  perfect  reason,  the  Word  of  God,  who  was  begotten 
before  the  light,  who  was  Creator  together  with  the  Father,”  who 
was  “in  the  Father  the  Son,  in  God  God,”  God  who  is  of  God, 
“  the  Son  who  is  of  the  Father,  Jesus  Christ,  the  King  for  ever  and 
ever.”  Melito  was  one  of  the  principal  lights  in  the  group  which  is 
characterized  by  Lightfoot  as  “The  Later  School  of  St.  John.”4 

1  On  the  two  Testaments,  see  Adv.  liar.  IV.  9,  2  ;  IV.  32,  2.  On  the 
combination  of  the  “  apologist-moral  ”  with  the  “  Biblical-realistic  ”  ingredients 
in  Irenmus,  see  Harnack,  DG.  ( Grundriss ),  101  sq.,  and  Loofs,  DG.,  p.  95. 
See  especially  the  important  work  of  Werner,  Der  Paulinismus  d.  IrencEus , 
etc.,  in  Gebhardt  u.  Ilarnack’s  Altchristl.  Lit.  VI.  3  (1889). 

2  On  Melito  and  his  writings,  see  Lightfoot,  Essays  on  Supernatural 
Religion ,  p.  223  sq.  The  subject  of  the  fragments  is  fully  discussed  by  Ilar- 
nack,  in  Gebhardt  and  Harnack,  Texte  u.  Untersuchungen,  etc.,  p.  240  sq. 
But  see  also  Harnack  in  Altchristl.  Literatur ,  I.  p.  250,  where  he  concludes  that 
the  four  Syrian  fragments  belonged  to  one  work,  of  which  Melito  was  the  author. 

3  ovaias. 

4  Contemporary  Review ,  Feb.  1876.  Reprinted  in  Essays  on  the  Work 
entitled  “  Supernatural  Religion,"  pp.  217-250. 


90 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


Tertullian,  more  than  any  other,  is  the  founder  of  Latin  the¬ 
ology.  He  deserves  to  be  called  the  forerunner  of  Augustine. 
He  disdains  the  philosophers,  going  so  far  as  to  call  the  serenity 
of  Socrates  in  the  presence  of  death  a  forced  or  affected  com¬ 
posure.  Yet  he  was  not  ignorant  of  the  philosophers,  and  his 
power  as  a  thinker  is  not  less  marked  than  his  extravagance. 
His  genius  and  eloquence  atone  for  his  faults  of  temperament. 
He  was  partly  Latin  and  partly  African,  and  he  blends  in  himself 
the  qualities  of  his  mixed  parentage. 

Tertullian  goes  farther  than  Irenaeus  in  asserting  the  authority 
of  tradition.  He  dwells  on  the  insufficiency  of  the  Apostolic 
Scriptures,  which  heretics  can  pervert  without  stint.  It  is  useless 
to  argue  with  them  on  the  basis  of  .these  writings,  which  really 
belong  only  to  those  who  have,  together  with  them,  the  “  rule 
of  faith.”  To  this  the  appeal  is  to  be  made.  Christ  chose  and 
sent  out  the  Apostles ; 1  these  founded  churches  and  made  them 
the  depositories  of  their  teaching ;  in  the  churches  there  have 
been  the  successions  of  bishops,  the  custodians  of  the  tradition.2 
Hence,  heretics  are  met  with  a  prcescriptio  —  a  demurrer.  Their 
dissent  from  the  doctrine  of  the  churches,  the  novelty  of  their 
teaching,  throws  them  out  of  court.  Tertullian’s  argument  here 
is  an  example  of  his  appropriation  of  legal  ideas,  a  characteristic 
of  his  waitings. 

Tertullian  was  much  influenced  by  the  Asia  Minor  theology. 
The  influence  of  Stoicism  is  also  quite  apparent  in  his  theological 
conceptions.  In  agreement  with  Stoic  doctrine  is  his  materialis¬ 
tic  view  of  the  constitution  of  the  soul,  wrhich  he  contends  for  at 
length  in  his  treatise  De  Anima .3  Indeed,  his  opinion  is  that  noth¬ 
ing  exists  that  is  not  of  a  corporeal  nature.  The  soul  is  of  a  finer 
species  of  matter.  It  is  like  the  wind  or  the  breath.  It  was 
breathed  into  man  by  the  Creator.  We  are  not  to  deny  even 
that  it  has  color  and  form,  —  its  form  being  like  that  of  the  body. 
Along  with  the  body  it  is  generated.4  It  has  a  seminal  beginning. 
Tertullian  was  thus  a  Traducian,  in  opposition  to  the  doctrine 
that  each  soul  originates  in  a  distinct,  creative  act. 

On  the  subject  of  the  evidence  of  the  being  of  God,  Tertullian, 
instead  of  marshalling,  as  other  Christian  Apologists  of  the  time 
were  apt  to  do,  the  concessions  of  heathen  writers,  points  to  what 

1  De  Prescript.  20,  21.  3  See  e.g. ,  cc.  5,  7. 

~  See,  for  example,  de  Prescript.  36.  4  De  Anima ,  27. 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


91 


he  calls  the  testimony  of  “  the  naturally  Christian  soul  ”  to  the 
divine  existence  and  unity.  He  invokes  the  untutored,  unsophis¬ 
ticated  soul  to  give  its  witness.  Its  unpremeditated  expressions 
—  such  as  “  Which  may  God  grant,”  “  If  God  will,”  ■“  May  God 
repay,”  “God  shall  judge  between  us” — spring  out  of  the  depths 
of  the  heart  and  are  the  best  attestation  to  the  truth.1  Tertullian 
insists,  also,  on  the  evidence  from  design.2 

As  Tertullian  is  the  first  to  use  the  word  ‘  Trinity,’ 3  so  is  he 
the  first  distinctly  to  say  that  tri- personality  pertains  to  the  one 
God  as  He  is  in  Himself.4  He  plants  himself  on  this  ground  in 
antagonism  to  the  Monarchian  theory,  which  rejected  the  idea  of 
a  diversity  of  persons  as  immanent  in  God.  The  Father,  Son, 
and  Holy  Ghost  are  “of  one  substance”  ;  they  are  susceptible  of 
number  without  division.5  The  Son  is  from  the  essence  of  the 
Father,  proceeding  from  him,  not  by  emanation,  as  the  Gnostics 
taught,  yet  by  a  self-projection  or  “  prolation.”  The  Son  or 
Logos  is  eternal,  since  the  Logos  is  the  reason  and  word  of  God. 
The  Father  projected  the  Son,  as  the  root  the  tree,  and  the  foun¬ 
tain  the  river,  and  the  sun  the  ray.  But  there  is  no  separation.6 

While  Tertullian  insists  on  the  unity  of  substance  and  the  tri- 
plicity  of  persons,  he  fails  of  reaching  the  full  Trinitarian  state¬ 
ment.  The  Logos  is  represented  to  be  the  impersonal  reason  of 
God  (ratio),  and  does  not  become  the  Word  (Serrno),  does  not 
emerge  into  personality,  until  the  work  of  creation  is  to  begin. 
Moreover,  subordinationism  in  the  Trinity  is  presented  in  the 
crude  form  of  a  greater  and  less  participation  of  the  divine  sub¬ 
stance  on  the  part  of  the  several  persons.  “The  Spirit  is  third 
from  God  and  the  Son,  as  the  fruit  out  of  the  tree  is  third  from 
the  root,  and  as  the  branch  from  the  river  is  third  from  the 
fountain,  and  as  the  apex  of  the  sunbeam  is  third  from  the  sun.”7 
“The  Father  and  the  Son,”  we  are  told,  “differ  from  one  another 
in  measure.” 8  The  meaning  is  made  clear  in  the  next  sentence  : 
“  For  the  Father  is  the  whole  substance,  but  the  Son  a  derivation 

1  De  Test.  An.  1,  2.  2  Adv.  Marc.  I.  11-13. 

3  Adv.  Prax.  3.  But  Theophilus  {ad  Autol.  XV.)  has  T piaSos. 

4  Ibid.  2.  5  Ibid.  2. 

6  Ibid.  8.  9.  An  indirect  influence  of  this  book  of  I  ertullian  on  the 

shaping  of  the  Nicene  doctrine  will  be  referred  to  later.  1  he  “  unius  sub¬ 

stantive”  appears  as  the  Homoousion. 

7  Ibid.  8. 


8  Ibid.  9. 


92 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


and  portion  of  the  whole.”  But  the  notion  of  an  actual  division 
of  the  substance  is  guarded  against,  when,  for  example,  Tertullian 
connects  with  the  illustrations  just  cited  (of  the  branch,  the 
river,  the  fountain,  etc.)  the  statement:  “Yet  nothing  is  parted 
(alienatur)  from  the  source  from  which  it  derives  its  properties.” 
Tertullian  brings  out  more  definitely  than  any  of  the  Fathers 
before  him  —  if  we  except  the  fragment  of  Melito  —  the  full 
humanity  of  Christ  and  the  distinction  of  the  two  natures,  each 
retaining  its  own  attributes.1  There  is  no  confusion,  but  a  con¬ 
junction  of  the  human  and  the  divine.  This  conception  of  Christ 
as  possessed  of  a  rational  human  spirit  is  the  only  one  consistent 
with  his  psychology,  in  which  there  is  no  possible  disjunction  of 
soul  and  spirit.2  This  teaching  must  govern  the  interpretation  of 
looser  expressions  in  which  man  in  Christ  is  said  to  be  mixed 
with  God.  On  the  importance  of  the  death  of  Christ  in  its 
relation  to  human  salvation,  Tertullian  is  emphatic.3  But  nothing 
is  said  of  any  transaction  with  Satan  for  the  release  of  man. 
Satan  was  overcome  in  the  temptation  of  Jesus.  Christ  was  not 
cursed  of  God,  but  by  the  Jews.  Nor  is  anything  said  of  a 
satisfaction  rendered  by  Christ  to  divine  justice,  although  Tertul¬ 
lian  conceives  of  justice  as  having  in  it  a  retributive  element. 
Justice  appears  even  in  nature,  in  the  separation  of  things  that 
differ,  as  the  day  from  the  night.4  The  power  of  God  creates, 
the  justice  of  God  orders  and  arranges.  The  “satisfaction”  of 
which  Tertullian  speaks  is  that  which  is  required  of  the  penitent 
Christian  who,  having  grievously  sinned,  would  be  reconciled  to 
an  offended  God.  Tertullian  is  fervent  in  his  exaltation  of  the 
mercy  of  God  in  its  relation  even  to  the  wayward  believer.  Yet 
a  certain  legalism  pervades  his  teaching  on  the  whole  subject  of 
repentance  and  God’s  acceptance  of  the  repenting  sinner.  He 
speaks  of  the  “  reward  ”  offered  to  repentance,  even  the  repent¬ 
ance  in  which  the  Christian  life  begins.5  He  speaks  of  making 
“  satisfaction  ”  unto  the  Lord,  by  repentance,  for  later  sins, 6  of 
release  from  penalty  as  “  a  compensatory  exchange  for  repent¬ 
ance.”  6  Satisfaction  is  made  by  confession ;  by  repentance  “  God 
is  appeased.”  7  By  fasting  and  other  forms  of  “  temporal  mortifi¬ 
cation,”  the  penitent  is  able  “to  expunge  eternal  punishment.” 8 

1  Adv.  Prax.  27.  4  Ibid.  II.  12.  7  Ibid.  7. 

2  De  Anima ,  12.  5  De  Pcenit.  5.  8  Ibid.  9. 

3  Adv.  Marc .  III.  8.  c  Ibid.  6. 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


93 


The  expressions  of  contrition  are  “a  self-chastisement  in  the  matter 
of  food  and  raiment.”  1  Tertullian  is  cautious  about  applying  the 
term  ‘  merit  ’  to  repentance  :  “  so  far  as  we  can  merit,”  is  the 
phrase  which  he  uses.2 

The  freedom  of  the  will  is  a  part  of  God’s  image  and  likeness 
in  man.3  There  is  entire  freedom  in  “both  directions”  — 
towards  the  right  and  towards  the  wrong.  It  is  a  part  of 
Tertullian’s  Traducianism  that  evil  is  propagated  in  the  soul. 
There  is  evil  in  the  soul  —  malum  animce  —  derived  from  its 
corrupt  origin  —  ex  originis  vitio ;  and  the  evil  has  become  in  a 
sense  a  second  nature.  “  The  corruption  of  our  nature  is  another 
nature.”4  Yet  this  suggestion  of  an  inborn  corruption,  in  which 
Augustine  is  anticipated,  is  qualified  and,  in  some  places,  virtually 
excluded.  The  offspring  of  one  Christian  parent  is  said  to  be  by 
“  the  seminal  prerogative  ”  not  unclean.  In  arguing  for  the  post¬ 
ponement  of  baptism,  it  is  asked  :  Why  should  this  innocent  age 
hasten  to  procure  the  remission  of  sins?5  It  is  said  that  the 
original  good  in  man  is  obscured  rather  than  extinguished.  “  It 
cannot  be  extinguished  because  it  is  from  God.”  “  In  the  worst 
men  there  is  something  good,  and  in  the  best  something  bad.” 6 
As  regards  regeneration,  we  are  told  that  the  grace  of  God  is 
more  potent  than  the  will,  which  is  the  faculty  within  us  possessed 
of  autonomy.7  “  The  soul  in  its  second  birth  is  taken  up  by  the 
Holy  Spirit.”8  Yet,  as  on  the  subject  of  innate  depravity,  there 
are  occasional  passages  which  seem  to  teach  that  grace  is  irresist¬ 
ible  ;  but  these  contravene  frequent  assertions  of  a  reserved  power 
and  a  concurrent  agency  in  the  will. 

Christ,  after  His  death,  descends  into  Hades,  the  abode  where 
the  evil  and  the  good  await  the  resurrection.  The  martyrs  are 
by  themselves  in  a  more  exalted  place  :  whether  it  be  within  or 
without  the  limits  of  Hades  is  not  quite  clear.9  There  is  a  first 
and  a  second  resurrection.  There  is  a  millennial  reign  of  Christ, 
but  all  sensuous,  Jewish  conceptions  of  it  are  repudiated.  Tertul¬ 
lian  dwells  on  the  spiritual  blessings  to  be  enjoyed  in  that  inter¬ 
mediate  state.  The  Holy  Land,  he  says,  is  not  Judea,  but  rather 

1  De  Pcenit.  u.  4  De  Anitna,  41*  7  Ibid.  21. 

2  Ibid.  6.  5  De  Bapt.  18.  8  Ibid.  41. 

3  Adv.  Marc.  7.  6  De  Anima,  41. 

9  See  Adv.  Marc .  IV.  34,  v.  17;  De  Resurrect.  17,  25.  In  De  Anima, 

c.  7,  the  patriarchs  and  the  bosom  of  Abraham  are  placed  in  Hades. 


94 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


the  flesh  of  the  Lord.  The  friendship  of  God  is  the  supreme 
good.  Hell,  “  the  treasure-house  of  eternal  fire,”  is  in  the  interior 
of  the  earth,  and  the  flames  issuing  from  the  mouths  of  volcanoes 
have  their  source  in  hell.1 

When  we  pass  from  Tertullian  to  Clement  of  Alexandria  we 
find  ourselves  in  a  very  different  atmosphere.  We  no  longer  hear 
invectives  against  philosophy.  “The  multitude,”2  he  says,  “are 
frightened  at  the  Hellenic  philosophy,  as  children  are  at  masks, 
fearing  lest  it  should  lead  them  astray.”3  Clement,  the  first  of 
the  Alexandrian  teachers  whose  writings  have  come  down  to  us, 
is  full  of  the  thought  that  the  mission  of  the  Christian  theologian 
is  to  build  a  bridge  between  the  Gospel  and  Gentile  wisdom,  to 
point  out  the  relations  of  Christianity  to  universal  knowledge,  to 
give  to  the  religion  of  Christ  a  scientific  form,  to  show  how  the 
believer  may  rise  to  the  position  of  the  true  “  Gnostic.”  Clement 
is  apart  from  all  contact  with  the  teaching  of  the  West.  Irenseus 
and  Tertullian  cast  their  theological  thoughts  in  a  polemical  form, 
their  aim  being  to  beat  back  the  invasion  of  error.  The  Alexan¬ 
drians  undertake  a  more  direct  and  positive  task.  It  was  the  work 
of  Origen  to  fulfil  this  task  of  giving  to  Christian  truth  the  unity 
of  a  system.  Clement,  the  precursor  of  Origen,  although  copious 
in  suggestions,  fails  to  mould  them  into  a  consistent  or  complete 
whole. 

The  sources  of  knowledge  respecting  divine  things,  according 
to  Clement,  are  Scripture  and  reason.  But,  as  nothing  which 
would  cast  dishonor  upon  God  is  worthy  of  belief,  a  high  place 
of  authority  is  given  to  reason.  Moreover,  the  method  of  allegory 
applied  in  interpreting  Scripture  opens  a  wide  door  for  the  intru¬ 
sion  of  subjective  speculations.  Yet  the  road  to  insight,  the  path 
upward  to  the  plane  of  the  true  Gnostic,  is  the  attaining  of  purity 
of  heart.  Thus  knowledge  and  holy  character  are  not  put  asun¬ 
der.  Clement  abounds  in  passages  in  which  the  philosophy  of 
the  Greeks  is  said  to  have  sprung  from  a  partial  divine  revelation, 
although  he  occasionally  makes  their  wisdom  a  plagiarism  from 
the  Hebrew  prophets.4  This  is  a  specimen  of  the  contradictions 
in  his  writings.  The  bond  of  union  between  Gentile  science  and 
the  religion  of  the  Gospel  is  in  the  conception  of  the  Logos,  which 
is  common  to  both.  Clement  follows  the  Greek  masters  in  repre- 


1  De  Pcenit.  12. 

2  oi  woWol. 


3  Stromata ,  VI.  io. 

4  E,g.  Ibid.  V.  14,  VI.  7. 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


95 


senting  God  as  incomprehensible,  transcendent,  above  the  sphere 
where  distinctions  and  differences  have  a  place.  “  Human  speech 
is  incapable  of  uttering  God.”  1  The  Logos  is  the  Revealer,  first 
in  the  Creation,  in  which  the  Logos  takes  part,  by  whom  wisdom 
is  stamped  upon  it ;  again,  in  the  light  of  reason  imparted  to  man¬ 
kind  ;  then  in  special  disclosures  of  divine  truth ;  and,  finally, 
through  the  Incarnation  in  Christ.  The  light  derived  from  the 
Logos  by  the  Gentiles  may  serve  as  the  stepping-stone  to  the  height 
on  which  shines  the  full  effulgence  of  the  Gospel.  “The  Greek 
Philosophy,”  says  Clement,  “purges  the  soul,  as  it  were,  and  pre¬ 
pares  it  beforehand  for  the  reception  of  faith,  on  which  the  Truth 
builds  up  the  edifice  of  knowledge.”  2  The  Father,  Son,  and  Holy 
Spirit  are  the  “Holy  Triad.”3  When  we  seek  to  ascertain  the 
relations  of  the  Three  to  one  another,  the  utterances  of  Clement 
lack  clearness  and  harmony  with  one  another.  There  is  an  essen¬ 
tial  unity  between  the  Father  and  the  Son.  This  unity  has  existed 
forever.  But  the  distinction  of  Father  and  Son  is  affirmed.4  Yet 
in  some  passages  the  personal  distinction  seems  to  fade  out.  But 
the  prevailing  view  is  that  of  the  Son  as  a  distinct  hypostasis.5 
The  Logos  is  said  to  undergo  no  change,  and  the  distinction  of 
immanent  and  spoken  Logos  is  rejected.6  The  Logos  is  conceived 
of,  after  the  manner  of  the  Stoics,  as  the  seminal  reason  diffused 
in  all  beings  to  whom  reason  is  given.  There  is  a  vagueness  on 
this  point  as  there  is  in  Philo’s  conception.  The  Holy  Spirit  is 
spoken  of  as  a  distinct  hypostasis,  but  how  the  Spirit  is  related  to 
the  Father  and  the  Son  is  not  made  clear.  But  there  is  no  ambi¬ 
guity  in  the  assertion  of  the  true  divinity  and  the  true  humanity 
of  Christ.  “  He  [Christ]  became  man  that  man  might  become 
God.”7  Christ  is  our  ransom;8  yet  it  is  not  said  to  whom  the 
ransom  is  paid.  He  is  our  propitiation.9  But  the  ordinary  repre¬ 
sentation  in  Clement  is  that  the  obstacle  to  the  salvation  of  men 
is  in  themselves.  Pardon  is  made  to  include  deliverance  from 
ignorance,  the  source  of  sin.  Redemption  is  not  so  much  the 
undoing  of  the  past,  as  the  lifting  of  man  up  to  a  higher  state  than 

1  Strom.  VI.  1 8;  cf.  V.  ii,  12.  3  Ibid.  V.  14. 

2  Ibid.  VII.  3.  4  Ibid.  IV.  25. 

5  On  this  subject,  see  Dorner,  I.  p.  443  sq.;  especially  p.  446;  1  homasius, 

DG.  I.  201  sq.;  Bigg,  p.  67.  0  Strom.  V.  1. 

7  Protr.  1.  For  other  passages,  see  the  references  in  Bigg,  p.  71- 

8  Quis  Div.  Salv.  37.  9  Peed.  III.  12. 


9  6 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


pertained  to  unfallen  man.  Man  was  created  upright.  The  free¬ 
dom  of  the  will  belonged  to  his  nature.1  In  the  exercise  of  it,  he 
sinned.  But  Adam  is  the  typical  example  of  sin,  rather  than  the 
foundation  whence  it  is  spread  through  the  race.  Freedom  of 
choice  remains,  although  the  soul  depends  on  the  Spirit  for  its 
renewal.2  The  regenerated  life  begins  in  baptism.  It  includes 
the  forgiveness  of  sins.  Henceforward  there  is  a  twofold  possi¬ 
bility.  There  is  a  lower  stage  of  Christian  character,  that  of  the 
ordinary  believer  who  attains  to  holiness  under  the  influence  of 
fear  and  hope ;  and  there  is  the  higher  life,  where  fear  is  cast  out 
by  love.  Simply  to  be  saved  is  something  very  different  from 
salvation  in  the  nobler  sense.3  This  is  the  life  of  knowledge, 
the  life  of  him  to  whom  divine  mysteries  are  revealed.  There 
is  higher  truth  which  may  not  be  communicated  even  to  Chris¬ 
tians  not  inwardly  prepared  to  receive  it.  This  is  the  doctrine 
of  Reserve.  Clement  was  not  a  mystic.  He  goes  so  far  as  to 
appropriate  from  Stoicism  the  notion  of  apathy,  and  love  is  de¬ 
picted  as  being,  in  relation  to  our  fellow-men,  passionless.  The 
true  Gnostic  does  not  desire  anything.  He  is  free  from  all  per¬ 
turbations  of  spirit.4  There  is  but  one  absolution  from  mortal  sin 
committed  after  baptism.  Respecting  the  Eucharist,  how  vague 
and  indeterminate  his  explanations  are  is  evident  from  the  cir¬ 
cumstance  that  by  some  he  has  been  thought  to  regard  it  as  a 
mere  memorial,  while  others  with  even  less  reason  have  attributed 
to  him  the  doctrine  of  transubstantiation.5  Justice  is  divested  of 
the  retributive  element.  The  principal  design  of  punishment  is 
the  correction  of  the  transgressor.  Another  object  is  the  restraint 
of  others.6  After  death  and  until  the  judgment  chastisement  con¬ 
tinues  as  a  cure  for  sin.  Then  probation  comes  to  an  end.  But 
Christ,  and  the  Apostles  after  Him,  preached  the  Gospel  in  Hades. 
In  some  places,  the  preaching  is  said  to  have  been  addressed  to 
such  as  simply  lacked  knowledge,  the  bent  of  the  heart  being 
right ;  but  the  heathen  generally  are  also  said  to  have  the  offer 
of  salvation  presented  to  them  in  the  intermediate  state.7  It 
would  not  be  just,  it  is  said,  to  deprive  them  of  the  opportunity 
to  be  made  acquainted  with  the  way  of  salvation.  At  the  deluge, 

1  Strom.  I.  17,  II.  15.  4  Ibid.  VI.  9. 

2  Ibid.  II.  19,  IV.  26.  5  See  Bigg,  p.  105  sq. 

3  Ibid.  VI.  14.  6  Peed.  I.  8;  Strom.  IV.  24. 

7  For  the  principal  statements  on  the  subject,  see  Strom.  VI.  6. 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


97 


punishment  was  inflicted  on  the  antediluvians  for  their  correction. 
Clement  rejected  the  Millenarian  theory  with  antipathy.  At  the 
Resurrection  it  is  not  a  literal  body  of  flesh  that  is  raised,  but  a 
spiritual  body  ; 1  but  the  Writing  of  Clement  on  this  special  subject 
is  lost. 

1  Peed.  II.  io. 
h 


CHAPTER  VIII 


MONARCHIANISM  —  MONARCHIANISM  OVERCOME  IN  THE  EAST  —  THE 

SYSTEM  OF  ORIGEN - THEOLOGY  AFTER  THE  DEATH  OF  ORIGEN 

-  NOVATIAN  -  DIONYSIUS  OF  ALEXANDRIA  AND  DIONYSIUS  OF 

ROME - METHODIUS 

In  answering  the  first  and  foremost  question,  “What  think  ye 
of  Christ?”  Christian  theology,  beginning  with  Justin  and  the 
Apologists,  had  taken  up  the  conception  of  the  Logos,  blending 
together  the  Jewish  and  the  Platonic  meanings  associated  with 
that  term.  On  the  basis  of  this  conception  the  doctrine  of  the 
divinity  of  Christ  was  moulded.  In  Irenaeus  and  Tertullian,  the 
Holy  Ghost  was  so  connected  with  the  Father  and  the  Son  as 
to  form  the  Trias.  The  safeguard  set  up  against  dyotheism  and 
tritheism  was  the  idea  of  subordination  and  of  the  precedence  of 
God  the  Father.  But  the  theological  construction  which  had  the 
Logos  for  the  starting-point  did  not  establish  or  complete  itself 
without  a  struggle,  and  a  prolonged  struggle,  against  opposition 
within  the  Church.  The  dissatisfaction  with  it  grew  partly  out  of 
the  feeling  that  the  doctrine  of  a  hypostatic  trinity  was  too  meta¬ 
physical,  and  savored  of  Gnosticism,  but  chiefly  arose  from  the 
conviction  that  this  doctrine  trenched  upon  monotheism.  To 
this  antagonistic  opinion,  in  its  different  varieties,  was  given  the 
name  of  Monarchianism,  a  term  first  used  by  Tertullian.1  The 
opinion  held  in  common  by  the  Monarchians  was  that  God  is  a 
single  person  as  well  as  a  single  being.  But  the  two  principal 
types  of  the  Monarchian  theory  were  widely  distinct  from  one 
another.  The  adherents  of  the  first,  the  dynamic  or  adoptionist 
doctrine,  contended  that  Christ  was  a  mere  man,  chosen  of  God 

1  On  Monarchianism  and  its  different  forms,  see  Harnack,  Real-Encycl. 
VIII.  178  sqq.,  and  DG.  I.  604-709;  also  the  elaborate  discussion  in  Dorner, 
Person  Christi ,  I.  497-562,  697-732. 

98 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


99 


and  by  Him  supernaturally  inspired  and  exalted.  He  was  the 
Son  of  God,  not  in  virtue  of  a  metaphysical  relationship  to  the 
Father,  but  by  adoption.  The  adherents  of  the  second,  on 
the  other  hand,  maintained  that  Christ  was  truly  divine,  but  as 
divine  was  indistinguishable  from  God  the  Father,  being  one 
mode  or  manifestation  of  the  divine  being.  These  were  termed 
in  the  West  Patripassians.  In  the  East  they  were  usually  grouped 
together  under  the  name  of  Sabellians.  There  is  no  good  ground 
for  supposing  that  the  first  or  humanitarian  class  was  ever  numer¬ 
ous  in  the  Church,  whether  in  the  East  or  the  West.  But  the 
opposite  is  the  fact  respecting  the  Modalists.  It  is  to  these  that 
Origen  and  Tertullian  have  reference  when  they  speak  of  the 
Monarchians  as  numerous.1  It  is  of  the  Modalist  opinion  —  in 
contrast  with  the  “ceconomy,” —  that  is,  with  the  idea  of  the 
trinity  as  a  distinction  of  persons  in  the  Divine  Being  Himself  in 
relation  to  creation  and  redemption  —  that  Tertullian  says  :  “To 
be  sure,  plain  people,  not  to  call  them  ignorant  and  common  —  of 
whom  the  greater  portion  of  believers  is  always  comprised  — 
inasmuch  as  the  rule  of  faith  withdraws  them  from  the  many  gods 
of  the  [heathen]  world  to  the  one  and  the  true  God,  shrink  back 
from  the  oeconomy.  .  .  .  They  are  constantly  throwing  out  the 
accusation  that  we  preach  two  gods  and  three  gods.  ...  We 
hold,  they  say,  the  monarchy.”2  When  Monarchianism  in  either 
of  its  two  forms  took  its  rise,  it  is  impossible  to  say.  Both  types 
seem  to  have  made  their  appearance  first  in  Asia  Minor,  where  in 
the  second  century  there  was  so  much  discussion  and  diversity  of 
opinion.  But  as  all  ways  led  to  Rome,  so  all  sorts  of  doctrine 
were  likely  to  be  carried  thither.  The  dynamic  or  humanitarian 
theory  resembled  the  Ebionite  opinion :  Modalism  had  a  docetic 
tendency ;  but  the  former,  as  far  as  can  be  ascertained,  had  no 
historic  connection  with  Ebionitism,  nor  had  Modalism  with  the 

1  Origen,  in  Johann.  T.  ii.  §  2.  Tertullian,  Adv.  Prax.  3.  Hase  ( Kirchen - 
gesch.  p.  99)  remarks:  “Jiistinus  fiihrt  es  noch  als  eine  Christliche  Meinung 
an  den  Herrn  fur  einen  blossen  Menschen  zu  halten,  und  widervvillig  bezeugt 
Tertullian  dass  es  in  seiner  Umgebung  die  Volksmeinung  war.”  this  is  an 
error  respecting  Tertullian.  As  to  Justin’s  words,  “Some  of  our  class,”  etc. 
(Dial.  48),  the  reading  —  ‘your  ’  for  ‘  our  ’  —  is  defended  by  Bull,  Thirlby,  and 
others.  It  is  not  rejected  by  Neander  (  Ch.  Hist.  I.  p.  363).  ^  n°t  approved 
by  Otto  (see  his  note  ad  loci),  nor  in  the  edition  of  Justin,  in  the  “Oxford 
Library  of  the  Fathers,”  p.  129.  But  ‘your  ’  is  found  by  Harnack  to  be  the 
correct  reading.  DG.  (3d  ed.)  I.  282  n.  2  Adv.  Prax.  3. 


IOO 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


clocetism  of  the  Gnostics.  That  Ebionitism  was  the  doctrine  of 
the  early  Church,  that  the  Church  of  Rome  in  the  second  century 
was  Ebionite,  that  Modalism  was  the  fruit  of  a  reaction  against 
that  doctrine,  that  the  Logos  theology  came  forward  as  a  mediat¬ 
ing  and  reconciling  system,  —  these  propositions,  which  were  in¬ 
volved  in  Baur’s  speculative  scheme,  have  at  present  no  foothold 
among  scholars. 

In  the  first  class  of  Monarchians  are  commonly  reckoned  the 
“Alogi.”1  This  designation  is  a  nickname  which  was  given  to 
them  by  Epiphanius.2  They  appeared  about  a.d.  170,  in  Asia 
Minor.  They  were  prompted,  by  their  extreme  antipathy  to 
Montanism,  its  ideas  as  to  prophecy,  and  its  doctrine  of  the  Para¬ 
clete,  to  discard  both  the  Apocalypse  and  the  Gospel  of  John. 
The  Gospel  they  ascribed  to  Cerinthus.  It  is  possible  that  they 
rejected  the  doctrine  of  the  Logos,  but  it  is  not  clear  that  they 
denied  the  divinity  of  Christ.  They  supported  their  repudiation 
of  the  Fourth  Gospel  by  critical  objections  drawn  from  a  com¬ 
parison  of  it  with  the  Synoptics,  partly  in  respect  to  points  of 
chronology.  The  brevity  and  the  mildness  of  the  notice  of  them 
in  Irenaeus  warrants  the  inference  that  their  number  was  small.3 
The  leading  opponents  of  Montanism,  both  in  Asia  Minor  and 
elsewhere,  were  not  in  accord  with  the  opinion  of  the  Alogi  as 
to  the  Fourth  Gospel.  If  it  were  not  for  the  lost  writing  of 
Hippolytus  concerning  the  Gospel  of  John  and  the  Apocalypse, 
and  the  confutation  which  Epiphanius  borrowed  from  one  or 
more  writings  of  this  Father,  we  should  have  no  proof  that  when 
Hippolytus  wrote  there  was  anything  left  of  the  opposition  of  the 
Alogi  to  this  Gospel.4 

1  The  Alogi  of  late  have  been  the  subject  of  much  discussion  in  Germany. 
The  topic  is  handled  by  Harnack  in  his  brilliant  article  on  “  Monarchianism” 
in  the  Real-Encycl.  (Vol.  X.)  and  in  his  DG.  It  is  considered  at  length  in 
the  first  half  of  the  first  volume  of  Zahn’s  History  of  the  New  Testament  Canon 
(1888).  This  last  publication  called  out  a  polemical  review  from  Harnack, 
in  which  the  Alogi  forms  one  of  the  prominent  themes :  Das  Neue  Test,  tan 
das  Jahr  200,  etc.  (1889).  InjZahn’s  brief  pamphlet  in  reply  to  Harnack 
(1889),  however,  this  particular  topic  is  not  taken  up.  The  subject  is  interest¬ 
ing  now  for  its  connection  with  the  debate  respecting  the  authorship  of  the 
Fourth  Gospel.  See  my  Paper  in  Papers  of  Am.  Ch.  Hist.  Soc.  (1890);  also, 
Sanday,  Inspiration  (1893),  pp.  14,  15,  64. 

2  Hcer.  51.  3  Irenoeus,  Adv.  Hcer.  III.  11,  9. 

4  Among  the  lost  works  of  Hippolytus  was  one  bearing  the  title,  Concern¬ 
ing  the  Gospel  according  to  John  and  Apocalypse.  According  to  Eben  Jesu 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


IOI 


Theodotus,  the  Currier,  came  to  Rome  from  Byzantium,  and 
was  expelled  from  the  Church  by  its  bishop  Victor  (about  a.d. 
195).1  Theodotus  taught  that  Christ  was  a  mere  man.  He  held 
to  the  miraculous  conception  of  Christ  and  held  that  at  His  bap¬ 
tism  the  “  Holy  Spirit  ”  descended  upon  Him  in  the  form  of  a  dove, 
but  that  on  this  account  He  could  not  be  called  God.  Caius,  the 
probable  author  of  the  “  Little  Labyrinth  ”  quoted  by  Eusebius, 
styles  Theodotus  the  “  inventor  ”  of  the  humanitarian  heresy* 
Whether  or  not  he  was  directly  connected  in  any  way  with  the 
Alogi  depends  on  the  interpretation  of  a  doubtful  phrase  in  Epi- 
phanius.  He  accepted  the  Gospel  of  John,  but  interpreted  it  in 
his  own  peculiar  way.  Epiphanius  cites  a  comment  by  him  on 
John  viii.  40.  His  doctrine  was  not  tolerated  at  Rome.  One  of 
his  disciples  was  a  second  Theodotus,  the  Money  Changer,  whose 
followers  are  said  to  have  taught  that  the  “  Holy  Spirit  ”  was 
present  in  Melchizedek  in  a  higher  mode  of  presence  and  activity 
than  in  Jesus.  Hence  they  were  called  Melchizedekians.  These 
Monarchians  are  said  to  have  been  students  of  Aristotle,  Theo- 

(in  Asseman),  among  the  writings  of  Hippolytus  was  a  defence  of  the  Gospel 
and  the  Apocalypse.  Probably  the  title  just  given  was  the  title  of  this  work. 
It  indicates  that  there  remained  some  of  the  Alogi,  and  adherents  to  their 
opinions  may  have  made  their  way  to  Rome.  The  same  thing  is  thought  to 
be  implied  in  what  is  said  of  John’s  Gospel  in  the  Muratorian  Canon;  but 
whether  the  statements  there  have  really  an  apologetic  intent  is  uncertain. 

1  Euseb.  H.  E.  V.  28.  Eusebius,  as  above  stated,  calls  Theodotus  “  the 
inventor”  of  the  heresy  that  Christ  was  a  mere  man.  What  is  especially 
important,  Hippolytus,  in  the  Ref.  Omn.  Hctr.  (X.  23),  expressly  states  it  to 
be  the  doctrine  of  Theodotus  that,  at  the  baptism  of  Jesus,  Christ  descended 
upon  him  in  the  form  oEaLdove, —  precisely  the  doctrine  which  Hippolytus, 
shortly  before,  ascribes  also  to  Cerinthus.  In  another  passage  (VII.  36)  Hip¬ 
polytus  likens  the  opinion  of  Theodotus  to  that  of  the  Gnostics.  In  the  former 
passage,  however,  he  speaks  of  “  that  Spirit  ”  which  descended  [and]  which 
proclaims  him  to  be  the  Christ.  Harnack  is  disposed  to  think  that  Hippoly¬ 
tus  may  have  erred  in  denominating  the  Spirit  which  was  said  by  Theodotus 
to  have  descended  “  Christ,”  and  to  question  whether  Theodotus  did  thus 
designate  the  Holy  Spirit  as  “  Christ”  (Harnack,  DG.  I.  623,  n.  2).  This 
last  suggestion  is  connected  with  Harnack’s  interpretation  of  Ilermas  (Lib. 
III.,  Simil.  V.),  which  makes  him  identify  the  Holy  Spirit  with  the  Divine  in 
Christ.  It  may  be  added  that  Epiphanius,  after  connecting  Theodotus  with 
the  Alogi,  adds  that  he  had  converse  or  communication  (crvyyevbixevos)  with 
other  heretics  before  named  and  contemporary  with  them.  Ilarnack’s  state¬ 
ment  that  nothing  more  than  contemporaneity  is  here  meant,  can  hardly  be 
justified. 


102 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


phrastus  and  Galen,  and  to  have  been  addicted  to  a  grammatical 
exegesis.  They  made  an  abortive  attempt  to  set  up  a  separate 
church.  The  last  representative  of  the  adoptionist  creed,  who 
appeared  at  Rome,  was  Artemon  (about  230  or  240). 1  The 
Artemonites  were  fond  of  Aristotle.  Like  other  Theodotians, 
they  were  critical  and  rationalistic.  Their  view  of  the  person  of 
Christ  may  have  somewhat  differed  from  that  of  the  Theodotians. 
Jhe  espousal,  by  the  Bishop  of  Rome,  Zephyrinus,  of  the 
Modalistic  doctrine,  which  the  Artemonites  could  with  reason 
pronounce  an  innovation,  enabled  them  to  assert  with  a  color  of 
plausibility  that  their  doctrine  had  prevailed  down  to  the  time  of 
Victor ;  an  assertion  which  was  confuted  by  their  opponents.  It 
is  clear  that  Artemon  is  to  be  reckoned  with  the  Adoptionists. 
After  the  middle  of  the  second  century,  the  Humanitarian  opinion 
has  practically  no  influence  in  the  West.  It  reappears  in  the  East 
in  the  person  of  Paul  of  Samosata. 

Among  the  Monarchians  of  the  second  class,  one  of  the  princi¬ 
pal  names  is  Pra^eas.  He  was  equally  inimical  to  Montanism 
and  to  the  doctrine  of  inherent  personal  distinctions  in  God. 
Tertullian  alleges  that  he  was  the  first  to  import  this  heresy  into 
Rome.  “  He  drove  out  the  Paraclete  and  crucified  the  Father.”2 
He  came  to  Rome  from  Asia  Minor  about  the  end  of  the  second 
century,  and  was  received  with  favor  by  the  Roman  bishop,  Victor. 
Passing  over  into  Africa,  he  won  a  great  many  adherents.  The 
Modalists  were  called  Patripassianists,  for  the  reason  that  their 
doctrine  implied  that  the  Father  suffered  on  the  cross.  This 
designation  belongs  preeminently  to  another  leader,  Noetus,  of 
Smyrna,  who  through  his  followers,  Epigonus  and  Cleomenes, 
acquired  much  influence  at  Rome.  Zephyrinus  and  his  successor, 
Callistus,  embraced  the  Patripassianist  opinion.  The  determined 
opponent  of  Callistus  was  Hippolytus,  who  advocated  the  hypo¬ 
static  doctrine,  and  refused  to  accept  formulas  devised  by  Callistus 
for  terminating  the  controversy.  Callistus  excommunicated  his 
antagonist,  perhaps,  also,  Sabellius ;  so  that  there  were  two  dis¬ 
senting  parties,  at  the  head  of  one  of  which,  as  a  rival  bishop,  was 
Hippolytus.  Hippolytus  tells  us  that  Callistus  combined  the 
notions  Pf  the  Noetians  and  the  Theodotians.3  By  Praxeas  it  was 
not  taught  directly  that  the  Father  suffered.  The  Father  assumed 

1  Eusebius,  H.E.  V.  28. 

3  Ref.  Omn.  liar.  X.  27. 


2  Adv.  Prax.  1. 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


103 


the  flesh  of  humanity  and  thus  became  the  Son ;  but  the  Spirit  in 
Christ,  which  is  God  the  Father,  did  not  suffer.1  Noetus  affirmed 
that  the  Father  himself  “  was  born  and  suffered  and  died.” 2  He 
maintained  that  his  doctrine  “  glorified  Christ.” 

Beryl,  Bishop  of  Bostra  in  Arabia,  rejected  the  personal  pre¬ 
existence  of  Christ,  and  is  probably  to  be  considered  a  Modalist, 
with  some  peculiarities  which  it  is  difficult  accurately  to  ascer¬ 
tain.  He  certainly  held  that  Christ  did  not  preexist  as  a  divine 
person  distinct  from  God  the  Father.  He  was  converted  from 
his  opinion  by  Origen,  at  a  Council  held  at  Bostra  in  244 .3 

The  most  famous  representative  of  Modalisrn  was  Sabellius.4 
He  is  often  said  to  have  been  a  Libyan  by  birth,  but  of  this  we 
are  not  certain.  He  spent  some  time  at  Rome  at  the  beginning 
of  the  third  century.  Sabellianism  underwent  various  modifica¬ 
tions,  and  as  we  have  only  a  few  fragments  of  the  writings  of 
Sabellius,  it  is  not  easy  to  define  precisely  his  teaching  save  in 
a  few  chief  points.  He  distinguished  between  the#  unity  of  the  \ 
divine  essence  and  the  plurality  of  its  manifestations.  He  proba¬ 
bly  advanced  upon  Noetus  in  connecting  the  Holy  Spirit  with  the 
Father  and  Son.  The  three  manifestations  follow  one  another  in 
order,  like  dramatic  parts.  God  as  Father  is  the  Creator  and 
Lawgiver ;  through  the  incarnation  the  same  God  fulfils  the  office 
of  Redeemer,  up  to  the  time  of  the  ascension ;  and,  lastly,  as 
Holy  Ghost  regenerates  and  sanctifies.  The  three  persons  would 
be  thus  equalized,  each  being  a  mode  of  action  on  a  level  with 
each  of  the  others.5  The  Sabellians  are  said  to  have  compared 
the  triplicity  of  God  to  the  Sun,  the  light  of  the  Sun,  and  its  heat. 
Athanasius  ascribes  to  Sabellius  himself  the  statement  that  the 
Father  extends  or  dilates  Himself  into  “  Son  and  Spirit,”  and 
hence  infers  that  “  the  name  of  the  Son  and  Spirit  will  of  necessity 
cease  when  the  need  of  them  has  been  supplied.”  0  If  Athanasius 
is  correct,  a  primacy  ?s  here  attributed  to  the  Father.  For  the 
proper  human  soul  of  Christ  Sabellianism  substituted  God  Him¬ 
self,  in  one  mode  of  manifestation,  streaming  through  a  human 
body. 

About  the  year  262,  Paul  of  Samosata  was  Bishop  of  Antioch, 

1  Tertullian,  Adv.  Prax.  29.  2  Hippolyt.,  Adv.  Nad.  1. 

3  Eusebius,  II. E.  VI.  33. 

4  For  the  sources  respecting  Sabellianism,  see  Harnack,  Real-Encycl.  X.  20S. 

5  See  Athanasius,  Adv.  Ar.  III.  4.  6  Ibid.  IV.  13,  1. 


104 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


which  was  then  under  the  rule  of  Zenobia,  Queen  of  Palmyra.1 
There  he  exercised  an  authority  almost  equivalent  to  that  of  a 
viceroy.  He  propounded  a  peculiar  form  of  the  dynamic  theory. 
Denying  personal  distinctions  in  the  Deity,  holding  that  Christ 
was  a  man  born  of  the  Virgin,  he  taught  that  the  Logos  inspires 
Him.  But  the  Logos  is  an  impersonal  attribute  of  the  Father, 
and  the  light  that  dwells  in  Christ  is  not  the  Logos  in  its  essence.2 
By  this  divine  power  there  is  effected  a  union  of  Christ  with  God, 
a  union  of  will,  not  of  essence,  a  union  consisting  in  a  love  that 
is  carried  to  perfection.  By  reason  of  this  ethical  union,  Christ 
is  exalted  by  the  Father,  is  clothed  with  a  divine  dignity,  and 
may  even  be  called  “  God.”  Political  influences  played  an  im¬ 
portant  part  in  the  long  controversy  occasioned  by  the  promulga¬ 
tion  of  this  novel  opinion.  Three  synods  were  held  at  Antioch, 
by  the  third  of  which  Paul  was  declared  to  be  excommunicated 
and  deposed.  He  continued,  however,  to  retain  his  position 
until  the  conquest  of  Zenobia  by  the  Romans  in  272,  when  the 
Emperor  Aurelian  compelled  him  to  give  up  the  church  building.3 

The  decisive  blow  against  Monarchianism  was  struck  by  the 
Alexandrian  School,  through  its  great  representative,  Origen.  In 
his  work  De  Principiis — Concerning  First  Principles ,  or  the 
fundamental  truths  of  Christianity  —  we  have  the  first  example 
of  a  positive  and  rounded  system  of  doctrine.4  Origen  argues 
against  the  Gnostics  and  the  Monarchians,  and  against  other 
parties  deemed  heretical,  but  all  this  is  incidental  to  the  end  in 
view,  which  is  to  present  a  direct  exposition  of  the  body  of  Chris¬ 
tian  doctrine.  In  this  respect  he  stands  apart  from  the  Apologists, 
and  from  Irenaeus  and  Tertullian.  His  refutation  of  disbelievers 
and  assailants  is  given  in  a  special  treatise,  his  Confutation  of 
Celsus.  Unfortunately  we  possess  the  De  Principiis ,  with  the 
exception  of  a  few  passages,  only  in  the  diffuse  and  inaccurate 
translation  of  Rufinus.  Yet  the  general  tfenor  of  the  treatise, 
and  the  other  writings  of  its  author,  render  it  possible  for  the 

1  For  the  sources  on  Paul  of  Samosata,  see  Harnack,  Real-Encycl.  X.  p.  193. 

2  So  says  Athanasius,  De  Decrett.  c.  v.  24. 

3  The  Letters  of  the  bishops  who  condemned  him  (which  are  found  in 
Eusebius,  H.E.  vii.  27-30),  give  chiefly  the  personal,  rather  than  the  doctrinal, 
charges  against  him.  But  all  the  proceedings  show  clearly  the  strong  opposi¬ 
tion  of  the  Church  to  the  humanitarian  doctrine.  See  Ilefele,  I.  b.  i.  c.  2,  §  9. 

4  Baur  argues  for  the  other  possible  meaning  of  the  title,  “First  Things.” 
DG.  I.  276.  " 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


105 


most  part  to  check  the  translator’s  deviations  from  the  original. 
When  we  take  up  the  De  Principiis  of  Origen,  we  seem  to  find 
ourselves  in  the  presence  of  a  modern  man.  The  atmosphere  is 
free  from  prejudice  and  polemical  bitterness.  The  vocabulary 
of  denunciation  is  sparingly  drawn  upon.  There  is  a  warm 
appreciation  of  the  value  of  all  knowledge,  and  of  the  possibility 
and  the  importance  of  discerning  the  relationship  of  the  Gospel 
to  philosophy  and  science.  Not  everything  in  theology  is  con¬ 
sidered  to  be  settled.  We  are  pointed,  beyond  the  borders  of 
ascertained  truth,  to  a  broad  margin  of  ground  not  yet  so  far 
explored  that  differences  of  opinion  are  precluded.  In  reference 
to  problems  not  yet  solved,  the  author  is  content  to  set  forth 
an  opinion,  freely  granting  to  others  the  liberty  of  dissent.1  Such 
open  questions,  for  example,  are  whether  the  Traducian  view 
or  its  opposite  is  true,  whether  the  Deity  is  absolutely  immate¬ 
rial  or  not,  the  doctrine  of  the  Holy  Ghost  in  some  important 
particulars.2 

But  Origen  plants  himself  on  the  rule  of  faith.  This  embodies 
the  justly  recognized  teaching  of  the  Apostles,  preserved  by  a 
trustworthy  tradition.3  Although  a  free-minded  student,  and  nat¬ 
urally  of  a  speculative  turn,  his  position  is  that  nothing  is  to  be 
received  which  is  contrary  to  the  Scriptures  or  to  legitimate  de¬ 
ductions  from  them.  Origen  is  emphatically  a  scriptural  theolo¬ 
gian.  He  has  an  astonishing  familiarity  with  the  contents  of  the 
sacred  books,  and  calls  up  from  all  parts  of  them  passages  apposite 
to  the  subject  which  he  is  handling.  All  Christian  truth,  he  holds, 
is  to  be  traced  to  Christ,  who  spoke  through  the  prophets  and 
Apostles.4 

Yet  the  allegorical  method  of  interpretation  leaves  room  for  an 
exegesis  based  really,  although  not  with  conscious  intention,  on 
suggestions  purely  subjective  in  their  origin.  This  allegorical 
character  of  the  Bible,  Origen  supports  by  appealing  to  particular 
interpretations  by  the  Apostle  Paul  and  by  other  arguments.5 
The  Scripture  has  a  threefold  meaning,  answering  to  the  trichot¬ 
omy,  body,  soul,  and  spirit,  in  man.1'  As  to  the  first,  there  are 
not  wanting  certain  narratives  which  cannot  be  taken  in  their 
literal  sense,  since  the  historical  meaning  implies  something  offen- 


1  See,  e.g.,  De  Princip.  I.  viii.  4. 

2  Ibid.  I.  i.  5,  9. 

3  Ibid.  I.  i.  I,  2. 


4  Ibid.  Li.  I. 

5  Ibid.  IV.  i.  13. 

6  Ibid.  IV.  i.  1 1. 


I06  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 

sive  to  Christian  feeling,  or  is,  for  other  reasons>  wholly  improba¬ 
ble.1  Examples  are  the  story  of  Lot  and  his  daughters,  and  the 
“ morning  and  evening”  before  the  sun  was  made  (Gen.  i). 
Passages  of  this  class  are  meant  to  be  “  stumbling  blocks”  to 
drive  us  to  the  discovery  of  a  higher  significance  in  them.  Fall¬ 
ing  under  the  second  head  are  the  psychic  interpretations,  which 
relate  to  the  individual  soul  in  this  life,  to  its  ethical  relations, 
including  its  relations  to  God.  It  is  the  third  sense,  the  occult, 
spiritual  intent  of  Scripture,  which  embraces  in  it  the  riches  of  the 
divine  word.  This  profounder  meaning  is  sealed  to  all  save  the 
mature  believer.2  It  is  dark  to  others  :  it  is  a  mine  into  which  he 
only  can  descend.  It  is  the  wisdom  which  is  open  only  to  “  the 
perfect.”  This  theory  furnishes  the  warrant  for  the  doctrine  of 
Reserve  in  communicating  truth.  Pearls  are  not  to  be  cast  before 
swine.  There  are  aspects  of  Christian  doctrine  of  which  it  is  true 
still  that  believers  not  yet  ripe  in  faith  and  purity  “  cannot  bear 
them  now.”  One  example  of  this  esoteric  creed  was  the  doctrine 
of  Restorationism,  which  it  would  not  be  expedient  to  proclaim 
abroad.3  The  Reserve,  which  is  legitimate  within  due  limits,  was 
of  course  carried  to  a  wrong  extreme  when  it  was  used  as  a  war¬ 
rant  for  a  tacit  sanction,  and,  perhaps  a  more  than  silent  counte¬ 
nance,  of  opinions  considered  by  the  enlightened  class  to  be 
erroneous.4 

God,  as  He  is  in  Himself,  is  incomprehensible.  Here  the  New 
Platonic  conception  is  appropriated.  He  reveals  Himself  to  us 
partially  in  Nature,  more  fully  in  Christ.  Our  knowledge  of  God 
being  thus  relative,  it  is  of  course  inadequate.5  Even  ‘  substance  ’ 
in  the  literal  sense  is  not  to  be  predicated  of  Him.6  Absolute 
causality  belongs  to  Him.  The  exercise  of  His  attributes,  such  as 
omnipotence  and  righteousness,  is  conditioned  on  the  creation. 
In  order  to  be  righteous,  in  any  other  than  a  potential  sense,  there 
must  be  things  over  which  He  can  righteously  rule.7  Not  only 
must  His  omnipotence  be  eternally  in  exercise;  it  is  in  full  exer¬ 
cise.  He  has  done  all  that  can  be  done.  Yet  He  can  set 

1  De  Princip.  IV.  i.  12  sq.  2  Ibid.  I.  i.  2. 

3  Adv.  Celsum ,  VI.  26. 

4  See  Bigg’s  remarks,  The  Christ .  Platonists  of  Alexandria,  p.  141  sq. 

5  Adv.  Cels.  VI.  lxv. 

0  eireiceiva  vov  xai  ovaias.  C.  Celsum,  VII.  38.  Cf.  De  Prin.  I.  i.  6.  Other 
references  in  Dorner,  Person  Christi,  I.  p.  661,  n.  22. 

7  De  Princip.  I.  ii.  10. 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


107 


limitations  upon  the  exercise  of  His  attributes.  So  strenuous  is 
Origen  in  asserting  the  freedom  of  man  that  he  attributes  to  God 
a  restriction  of  His  own  prescience  in  order  to  leave  unimpaired 
the  liberty  of  the  human  will.  Creation  springs  from  God’s  wis¬ 
dom  and  benevolence.  Inseparable,  of  course,  from  Origen’s  idea 
of  the  divine  attributes,  is  his  doctrine  that  creation  is  eternal. 
It  is  creation,  not  a  Gnostic  emanation ;  but  there  was  never  a 
time  when  God  existed  alone,  and  when  the  world  of  rational 
beings  was  not. 

The  Mediator  between  God  and  the  world,  through  whom  the 
world  is  made,  is  the  Logos.  In  the  Logos  are  all  the  ideas 
which  exist  in  an  inscrutable  unity  in  the  Father,  and  are  em¬ 
bodied  in  the  creation.  In  relation  to  the  Logos  the  Father  “  is 
one  and  simple  ”  ;  while  it  is  in  the  Logos  that  the  world  finds  its 
unity.  The  Logos  is  personal  and  without  beginning.1  He  is 
generated  of  the  Father,  but  this  generation  is  eternal.2  Origen 
rejects  the  proposition  which  afterwards  became  a  watchword  of 
the  Arians,  —  “ There  was  (a  time)  when  He  was  not.”3  The 
generation  of  the  Son  is,  therefore,  timeless.  It  is  no  momentary 
act.  He  is  without  beginning.  God  is  eternally  a  Father,  —  a 
statement  which  is  fundamental  in  the  later  Athanasian  theology. 
The  personal  Son  or  Logos  is  the  complete  manifestation  of  the 
hidden  Deity.4  He  is  the  Wisdom  of  God,  without  which  He 
would  not  be  God.  How  is  the  Son  generated?  Origen  dis¬ 
cards  every  notion  of  sensuous  emanation,  and  every  notion  of 
division  or  partition.  The  Son  is  likened  to  the  radiance  of  a 
torch.  The  relation  of  the  Son  to  the  Father  is  compared  to  the 
proceeding  of  the  will  from  the  mind  in  man.5  He  is  said,  in  one 
place,  to  be  generated  from  the  substance  of  the  Father.0  There 
are  numerous  expressions  of  this  general  character  which  appear 
to  leave  nothing  wanting  to  the  conception  of  the  true  and  proper 
divinity  of  the  Son.  Yet,  in  Origen’s  idea,  the  Father  is  the  foun¬ 
tain-head  of  Deity.7  The  Father,  moreover,  is  God  as  He  is,  in 
and  of  Himself ;  the  Father  is  “  God  ”  with  the  article  prefixed  to 

1  De  Princip.  I.  ii.  2. 

2  De  Princip.  I.  ii.  4;  In  Jerem.  9,  4. 

3  Fragment  in  Athanasius,  De  Decrett.  27. 

4  De  Princip.  I.  ii.  7,  8.  5  Ibid.  I.  ii.  7. 

6  Frag,  of  Pamphil.  ad  Hebr.  (See  Dorner,  Person  Christi ,  I.  633)  :  “  Ex 
ipsa  Dei  substantia  generatur.” 

7  In  Johann.  II.  5,  6,  18. 


io  8 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


the  term  :  whereas  the  Son  is  God,  with  the  article  omitted.1  He 
is  “  the  second  God,”  a  kind  of  repetition  or  duplicate  of  God.2 
He  is  even  said  to  be  of  another  substance  or  essence.3  He  is 
from  the  will  of  the  Father.4  In  one  place  He  is  even  called  “  the 
most  ancient  of  all  creatures.”5  It  is  in  such  expressions  as  these 
that,  at  a  later  day,  the  Arians  found  satisfaction.  Their  opponents 
appealed  to  the  former  class  of  representations.  How  to  reconcile 
Origen  with  himself  on  this  subject  is  a  question  that  has  naturally 
provoked  much  discussion.  It  must  be  remembered  that  the  terms 
involved  had  not  acquired  the  precision  of  meaning  which  they 
attained  subsequently.  It  must  be  remembered,  likewise,  that 
Origen,  while  insisting  on  the  divinity  of  Christ,  is  solicitous  to 
fend  off  the  Monarchian  inference  of  the  identity  of  the  Father 
and  the  Son,  as  well  as  Gnostic  theories  of  emanation.  This 
motive  it  is  which  moves  him  to  emphasize  the  difference  between 
Father  and  Son. 

How  can  the  Son  be  derived  from  the  will  of  God,  and  yet  be 
not  created,  but  begotten?  It  cannot  be  denied  that  the  two 
classes  of  statements  in  Origen  on  this  subject  seem  at  first. to  be  at 
hopeless  variance  with  one  another.  So  Baur  judges  them  really 
to  be.6  But  there  is  a  method  of  reconciliation  which  is  certainly 
more  than  plausible.  ‘Will,’  like  ‘spirit,’  ‘truth,’  is  embraced  in 
the  transcendent,  inscrutable  unity  of  the  divine  being.  In  the 
objectifying  of  God  the  Father,  or  in  His  mysterious  self-revelation, 
will  becomes  explicit  in  the  person  of  the  Son.7  Occasionally,  as 
we  have  seen,  the  Father  is  said  to  be  super-substantial.8  Even 
‘substance ’  when  predicated  of  Him  would  be  a  limitation.  Hence 
the  Son  is  spoken  of  as  another  in  substance.  In  this  way  His 

1  In  Johann.  II.  2. 

2  C.  Celsum,  V.  39.  In  C.  Celsum, V III.  12,  13,  Origen  is  concerned  only 
to  show  that  the  Father  and  the  Son  are  one  in  the  harmony  of  their  wills. 
See  Thomasius,  DG.  p.  203,  n.  2. 

3  De  Or  at.  I.  15.  Others  take  ovaLa  here  in  the  sense  of  hypostasis.  So 
Neander,  DG.  I.  162;  Bigg,  163,  n.  3;  Robertson,  Athanasius,  p.  xxxi. 

4  De  Princip.  I.  ii.  6. 

5  Hebr.  I.  3.  Cf.  C.  Celsum ,  V.  37. 

0  “  So  vereinigt  Origenes  die  beiden  entgegengesetzten  Lehrbegriffe,  den 
athanasianischen  und  den  arianischen,  im  Keime  in  sich.”  DG.  I.  453. 

7  See  Thomasius,  DG.  I.  202  sq. 

8  Origen  says  that  a  discussion  about  ‘  substance 5  and  whether  God  is 
“  beyond  substance,”  would  be  long  and  difficult.  C.  Celsum,  VI.  64. 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


IO9 


personal  distinction  and  subordination  to  the  Father  are  guarded.1 
“The  generation,”  says  Harnack,  “is  an  indescribable  act,  which 
can  be  represented  only  in  inadequate  similitudes  ;  it  is  no  emana¬ 
tion  .  .  .  but  is  rather  to  be  designated  as  an  internally  necessary 
act  of  the  will,  which  for  this  very  reason  is  an  effluence  of  the 
nature.”2  Two  things  are  plain  in  the  review  of  Origen’s  whole 
teaching  on  this  topic.  One  is  the  subordinationism  that  pervades 
it.  The  other  is  the  room  left  for  a  diversity  of  interpretation  by 
the  seemingly  inharmonious  phrases  to  which  we  have  adverted. 

Concerning  the  incarnate  Christ,  Origen  is  at  pains  to  show, 
against  the  docetic  opinion,  that  He  is  possessed  of  a  human  soul 
in  inseparable  unity  with  the  Logos.3  This  human  soul  was  a  pure, 
unfallen,  preexistent  spirit,  chosen  on  account  of  these  qualities. 
Yet  its  freedom  of  choice  is  exercised,  after  the  incarnation,  in  its 
victory  over  temptation,  a  victory  which  is  carried  to  completion. 
To  indicate  how  the  Son  incarnate  is  capable  of  revealing  the 
Father,  he  uses  the  illustration  of  the  statue.4  There  is  a  colossal 
statue,  so  large  as  to  fill  the  world,  which  therefore  cannot  be  seen. 
Yet  a  small  statue  precisely  like  it  in  form  and  material  would  en¬ 
able  us  to  know  what  it  is.  Christ,  the  express  image  of  the 
Father,  becomes  such  to  us  by  divesting  Himself  of  His  glory. 
Yet  the  human  nature  of  Christ  is  not  unaffected  by  its  indissoluble 
union  with  the  divine  Logos, — just  as  a  bar  of  iron  which  is  in  the 
fire  remains  iron,  although  it  is  different  in  its  effects  from  what 
it  would  be  if  it  were  not  in  the  fire.  This  soul  elected  to  love 
righteousness,  and  the  holiness  which  at  first  depended  on  the  will, 
was  changed  by  custom  into  nature.5  It  is  perpetually  in  the 
Word,  in  Wisdom,  in  God.6 

The  Holy  Spirit  is  associated  in  dignity  with  the  Father  and  the 
Son.  Whether  or  not  He  is  created,  writes  Origen,  has  not  been 
clearly  determined.  The  Holy  Spirit  has  not  that  immediate  rela¬ 
tion  to  the  Father  which  belongs  exclusively  to  the  Son.  Yet  the 
Holy  Spirit  has  a  direct  knowledge  of  the  Father,  perceiving 

1  See  Dorner,  Person  Christie  p.  661. 

2  Harnack,  DG.  I.  581.  See,  also,  Denis,  De  la  Philosophic  d’’  Origene, 
p.  93  sq.  In  De  Princip.  v.  15,  1 1,  in  speaking  of  Mark  x.  18  (“  There  is  none 
good  save  one”),  Origen  says  that  the  Son  is,  as  the  Father  is,  ayadbs,  but 
not  airapaWaKTws  ayadbs.  The  Father  is  the  aboriginal  fountain  of  good¬ 
ness.  The  passage  was  altered  by  Rufinus. 

3  De  Princip.  II.  vi.  3.  5  Ibid.  II.  vi.  5. 

4  Ibid.  I.  ii.  8.  6  Ibid.  II.  vi.  6. 


I  IO 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


directly  the  deep  things  in  the  mind  of  God.  He  does  not  derive 
this  knowledge  from  the  Son.1  The  Spirit  is  an  object  of  worship. 
And  if  the  rendering  of  Rufinus  is  here  to  be  trusted,  Origen  says 
that  he  has  found  no  passage  in  the  Scriptures  where  it  is  taught 
that  He  is  a  creature.2  The  Holy  Spirit  is  confined  in  His  agency 
to  the  souls  which  He  renews  and  sanctifies.3  Christians  derive 
existence  from  the  Father,  rational  existence  from  the  Son,  holiness 
from  the  Spirit.4 

In  order  to  understand  Origen’s  ideas  relative  to  man  and  to  the 
doctrine  of  sin,  we  must  keep  in  mind  how  uniform  and  strenuous 
—  in  opposition  to  fatalism  —  is  his  assertion  of  freedom.5  The 
original  creation  consisted  exclusively  of  rational  spirits.  They 
were  co-equal  as  well  as  co-eternal.  A  different  view  would  imply 
that  the  creation  was  defective.  It  would  leave  unanswered  the 
question  why  the  creation  was  partly  deferred.  Moreover,  Origen 
is  led  by  his  general  views  to  the  conclusion  that  all  inequalities  were 
due  originally  to  “  merits  and  qualities  ”  pertaining  respectively  to  an¬ 
gelic  beings.6  The  preexistence  of  men  is  involved  in  the  theory  of 
creation.  This  supposition  alone  meets  the  objections  to  the 
divine  justice.7  The  preexistent  fall  of  men  from  holiness  is  not 
only  presupposed  in  their  present  character  from  birth ;  it  is  the 
ground  and  reason  of  the  existence  of  the  material  world.8  The 
fallen  rational  spirits  become  souls,  and  are  clothed  with  bodies. 
The  preexistent  spirits  have  an  innate  capacity  to  be  thus  incorpo¬ 
rated  in  the  flesh,  but  this  potential  materiality  becomes  actual  in 
consequence  of  their  voluntary  misdoing.  Matter  is  called  into 
being  for  the  purpose  of  supplying  an  abode  and  a  means  of  disci¬ 
pline  and  purgation  to  these  fallen  spirits.  Whether  the  souls 
which  are  supposed  to  animate  the  heavenly  bodies  are  tainted 
with  sin,  or  have  special  offices  to  fulfil,  not  the  consequence  of 
any  transgression  on  their  part,  is  not  made  clear.  Thus  the  world 
in  which  we  live  is  made  as  a  theatre  of  redemption.  Its  suffer¬ 
ings  and  sorrows  and  the  ordinance  of  death,  are,  to  be  sure,  an 

1  De  Princip.  I.  iii.  4.  3  Ibid.  I.  iii.  5. 

2  Ibid.  I.  iii.  3.  4  Ibid.  I.  v.  8. 

5  See,  e.g.,  Ibid.  II.  i.  2,  III.  i.  2  sq.  Passages  of  like  purport  abound 

in  Origen’s  writings. 

c  Ibid.  I.  viii.  1  sq.  7  Ibid.  III.  iii.  5. 

8  Karaf3o\r]  (Matt.  xxiv.  21 )  is  said  to  mean  dejection  or  fall,  which  gives 

rise  to  the  present  state  of  being.  De  Princip.  III.  v.  34. 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


1 1  I 


infliction  of  justice,  but  justice  is  a  form  of  mercy.1  The  earth  is  a 
school  for  the  recovery  of  the  sinful.  It  is  to  be  observed  that, 
notwithstanding  the  preexistent  fall,  even  in  this  life  sin  does  not 
begin  until  reason  awakes  and  there  is  a  voluntary  election  of  evil, 
with  no  constraint  from  within  or  without.  Origen  is  the  earnest 
foe  of  the  doctrine  of  unconditional  predestination.  The  end  and 
aim  of  all  divine  influence,  and  of  the  orderings  of  Providence,  is  to 
bring  men  back  to  holiness  and  blessedness.  Origen’s  interpreta¬ 
tions  of  St.  Paul  in  the  seventh  of  Romans,  of  what  is  said  in  the 
Bible  of  the  hardening  of  Pharaoh’s  heart,  and  of  what  is  said 
respecting  the  “ judicial  blindness”  to  which  the  wicked  are  given 
over,  are  in  general  accord  with  modern  Arminianism.2  Only 
Origen  goes  farther  in  maintaining  that  in  such  examples  as  that 
of  Pharaoh,  the  method  of  the  divine  cure  of  sin  is  like  that  pur¬ 
sued  by  physicians  in  certain  physical  maladies.  It  is  slow  and 
gradual.3  It  involves  at  certain  stages  severity  and  the  infliction 
of  anguish ;  but  these  are  merciful  in  their  intent  and  in  their 
ultimate  effect. 

Respecting  the  work  of  Christ,  Origen  includes  the  current 
view  of  a  conquest  by  Christ  over  the  powers  of  evil  by  which  men 
are  delivered  from  their  sway.  He  broaches  the  doctrine  of  a 
deceit  practised  on  Satan,  who  accepts  the  soul  of  Christ  as  a 
ransom,  not  knowing  that  he  could  not  endure  the  presence  of 
a  sinless  soul.4  But  this  is  far  from  being  the  exclusive  doctrine 
of  Origen  in  regard  to  the  significance  of  the  Saviour’s  death.  It 
is  a  vicarious  death  in  behalf  of  the  race.  It  is  an  offering  for  sin, 
typified  in  the  sacrifices  of  the  Old  Testament.  Under  this  head, 
he  teaches  that  for  sin  an  atonement  is  necessary,  the  value  of 
which  is  measured  by  the  value  of  the  blood  that  is  shed.  The 
death  of  Christ  is  thus  vicarious.  In  his  interpretation  of  Romans 
iii.  25,  he  makes  the  death  of  Jesus  to  be  a  propitiation.5 

It  is  through  the  Logos  that  light  goes  forth  upon  mankind, 
not  upon  a  part  alone,  but  upon  all.  It  is  first  through  natural 

1  De  Princip .  II.  v.  I.  2  Ibid .  III.  i.  10  sq. 

3  Ibid.  III.  i.  17.  See  Origen  in  Matt.  XVI.  8;  XII.  28;  XIII.  8,  9;  Rom. 

II.  13.  For  other  passages,  see  the  excellent  monograph  of  1  homasius,  p.  223, 
or  Redepenning’s  Origines,  p.  405  sq.  In  this  conception,  Satan  fills  the 
place  of  the  demiurge  of  the  Gnostics. 

4  E.g.,  C.  Celsum ,  VII.  17,  I.  31. 

5  Cf.  In  Johann.  J.  XXVIII.  14. 


I  12 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


law,  and  through  the  specially  revealed  law,  which  is  given  to 
one  nation  by  way  of  preparation  for  the  higher  light  to  come 
through  the  Logos  incarnate.  But  the  redemptive  influence  of 
the  Logos  extends  beyond  this  life.  Pharaoh  was  overwhelmed 
in  the  Red  Sea,  but  was  not  annihilated.1  He  is  still  under  the 
divine  superintendence.  Not  only  men  who  have  lived  on  earth 
and  died,  but  all  fallen  spirits,  not  excluding  Satan  and  evil  angels, 
are  visited  by  the  redemptive  influences.  As  a  part  of  esoteric 
doctrine,  of  the  deeper  disclosure  of  the  Gospel,  vouchsafed 
to  such  as  are  prepared  for  it,  the  restitution  of  all  was  accepted 
by  Origen.2  But  so  far  did  he  carry  his  idea  of  the  freedom  and 
mutability  of  the  will  that  he  appears  to  have  held  to  the  possi¬ 
bility  of  renewed  falls  hereafter,  and  of  worlds  to  take  the  place 
of  the  present  for  the  recovery,  once  more,  of  inconstant  souls.3 

The  conception  of  the  Sacraments  is  spiritualized  in  Origen. 
Baptism  is  the  symbol  of  the  cleansing  of  the  soul  by  the  divine 
Logos.  Yet  it  is  the  real  beginning  of  gracious  influences  for 
believers  who  are  inwardly  fitted  to  receive  them.  So  the  Lord’s 
Supper  is  the  symbol  of  the  living  word  of  truth  which  is 
the  true,  heavenly  bread  given  of  Christ  in  like  manner  to  all 
who  are  spiritually  qualified  to  receive  it.  To  these,  but  only 
to  these,  is  the  sanctifying  influence  which  is  connected  with  the 
bread  and  wine  after  their  consecration  of  any  benefit.4 

In  discarding  Chiliasm,  Origen  cast  aside,  also,  the  crass  con¬ 
ception  of  the  nature  of  the  Resurrection.  There  is  a  living 
power,  a  germ,  in  the  present  body,  which  gives  to  it  shape  and 
form,  and  will  give  rise  to  a  spiritual  organism  conformed  to  the 
nature  of  the  particular  soul,  be  it  good  or  evil,  that  receives  it. 

It  is  only  a  small  fraction  of  disciples  to  whom  the  door  of 
blessedness  in  the  vision  of  God  is  open  immediately  at  death. 
Generally  speaking,  the  righteous  enter  into  a  state  where  they 
are  still  under  training,  are  advanced  higher  and  higher  in  the 
scale  of  knowledge,  and  are  purified  from  the  remains  of  sin. 
Finally  they  reach  the  culmination  of  holiness  and  bliss.  The 
wicked  are  subjected  to  a  discipline  which  has  the  same  end  ' 
in  view,  but  which  includes  pains  of  conscience  of  which  fire 

1  De  Princip.  III.  I,  14.  2  E.g.,  see  Ibid.  I.  vi.  1,  III.  vi.  3. 

3  See  Jerome’s  Letter  (CXXIV.)  to  Avitus.  Cf.  Thomasius,  Origenes. 

p.  259. 

4  See  Neander’s  exposition  of  Origen’s  opinion,  Ch.  History ,  I.  648,  649. 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


1  1  3 

is  the  symbol,  and  they  may  even  suffer  outward  inflictions. 
For  them  the  goal  is  remote,  but  it  is  eventually  reached. 

It  was  far  from  the  intent  of  Origen  to  call  in  question  the 
essentials  of  the  Christian  teaching,  to  which  he  was  profoundly 
attached.  That  teaching,  to  be  sure,  comes  from  him,  steeped  in 
an  infusion  of  Greek  Philosophy,  besides  being  strongly  tinctured 
with  certain  other  elements,  the  exclusive  product  of  his  own  spec¬ 
ulation.  But  perhaps  what  is  eccentric  in  his  opinions  excites 
attention  somewhat  more  in  a  brief  sketch  of  his  system  than  in 
his  own  copious  expositions.  The  influence  of  this  great  theo¬ 
logian  was  wide-spread  and  lasting.  One  evidence  of  this  fact  is 
the  series  of  attacks  upon  his  opinions  and  the  heated  controver¬ 
sies  respecting  his  orthodoxy.  How  attractive  and  impressive  he 
was  when  he  taught  with  the  living  voice,  is  described  by  a  pupil, 
the  saintly  Gregory  Thaumaturgus.  He  gained  a  new  title  to 
reverence  through  his  sufferings  and  steadfastness  in  the  Decian 
persecution.  As  is  true  of  not  a  few  pioneers  in  theological 
inquiry,  there  lay  in  his  writings  the  seeds  of  systems  not  in 
accord  with  one  another.  So  powerful  was  the  stimulus  imparted 
by  his  genius  to  religious  thought.  v 

In  the  West,  in  the  last  half  of  the  .second -century,  the  theology 
of  Origen  had  no  considerable  influence.  Novatian,  who  after 
the  election  of  Cornelius  as  Bishop  of  Rome  (a.d.  251)  led  the 
revolt  against  the  relaxation  of  discipline  in  the  case  of  the  lapsed, 
was  a  man  of  mark,  and  is  praised  for  his  talents  and  learning. by 
Cyprian.  He  wrote  a  treatise  on  the  Trinity,  which,  with  some 
deviations,  reflects  the  teaching  of  Tertullian.  He  is  very  decided 
against  Monarchianism.  He  says  that  the  Son  was  “  always  in  the 
Father;  else  the  Father  would  not  always  be  the  Father.”1  The 
Son,  however,  may  be  said  to  have  a  beginning,  and  in  a  certain 
sense  the  Father  precedes  Him.  Yet  the  Son  was  begotten  and 
born  when  the  Father  willed  it,  and  proceeded  from  Him  of  whose 
will  “  all  things  were  made.”1  The  Son  is  in  all  things  obedient 
to  the  Father  from  whom  He  derived  His  beginning.  There  is  a 
community  of  substance  between  the  two.1  The  incarnate  Son 
is  God  as  well  as  man.  But  the  true  and  eternal  Father  is  the 
one  God  by  whom  is  imparted  the  divinity  of  the  Son ;  and  the 
Son  at  the  end  remits  to  the  Father  “  the  authority  of  His  divin¬ 
ity.”  In  the  incarnation,  “ the  legitimate  Son  of  God”  assumes 

1  Novatian,  De  Trinitate,  c.  31. 


1 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


I  14 

that  “Holy  Thing,”  and  thus  makes  the  Son  of  man  —  what  He 
“was  not  naturally”  —  the  son  of  God.1  It  is  a  proof  of  the 
divinity  of  Christ  that  the  Holy  Spirit  receives  from  Him  what  the 
Spirit  declares,  and  is  thus  evidently  “less  than  Christ.”2 

Nowhere  was  the  influence  of  Origen  so  great  as  at  Alexandria. 
One  of  the  most  eminent  of  his  pupils  was  Dionysius,  who  was 
bishop  there  from  about  247  to  268.  The  fragments  of  his  writ¬ 
ings  that  remain  show  him  to  have  been  a  man  of  remarkable  abili¬ 
ties.  He  wrote  “Concerning  the  Promises,”  in  answer  to  Nepos, 
an  Egyptian  bishop,  the  author  of  a  book  defending  Chiliasm 
and  opposing  the  allegorical  interpretation  of  the  Apocalypse. 
The  Alexandrian  bishop  defended  the  opinions  of  Origen.  He 
manifested  critical  ability  in  the  reasons  which  he  assigned  for 
regarding  the  book  of  Revelation  as  not  from  the  pen  of  the 
Apostle  John,  but  as,  perhaps,  the  work  of  another  John,  “the 
Presbyter,”  said  to  be  a  contemporary  of  the  Apostle  at  Ephesus. 
In  a  series  of  letters  to  certain  bishops  in  the  Pentapolis  who 
held  Sabellian  opinions,  which  were  still  prevalent  in  that  district, 
Dionysius  was  led  by  his  zeal  in  behalf  of  the  distinction  of  per¬ 
sons  not  only  to  deny  that  the  Son  is  coessential  (Homoousios) 
with  the  Father,  but  to  deny  also  that  He  is  coeternal.  He  even 
said  that  “  the  Son  is  a  creature  .  .  in  essence  alien  from  the 
Father,  just  as  the  husbandman  is  from  the  vine,  or  the  ship¬ 
builder  from  the  boat ;  for  that,  being  a  creature,  He  was  not 
before  He  came  to  be.” 3  The  namesake  of  the  Alexandrian 
Bishop,  Dionysius,  Bishop  of  Rome,  informed  of  what  he  had 
said,  wrote  a  letter  on  the  subject  to  Alexandria,  and  a  personal 
letter  to  its  bishop.  By  way  of  response,  the  latter  composed 
a  book,  entitled  Refutation  and  Defence ,  which  was  addressed 
to  the  Roman  Dionysius.  Athanasius,  from  whom  we  ascertain 
the  contents  of  this  correspondence,  defends  the  orthodoxy  of  the 
bishop  who  was  complained  of.  This  he  does  in  his  treatise  on 
the  Decrees  of  the  Nicene  Council,  and  in  a  short  special  writing 
on  “  the  Opinion  of  Dionysius.”  Dionysius  explains  to  his  Roman 
brother  that  in  the  use  of  the  obnoxious  expressions,  which  he 
admits  might  have  been  more  carefully  chosen,  his  intent  was  to 
guard  on  the  one  hand  the  distinction  of  the  Son  from  the  Father 
and,  on  the  other  hand,  to  give  emphasis  to  the  fact  of  the  genera- 

1  De  Trinitate ,  c.  24.  2  Ibid.  c.  16. 

3  Athanasius,  De  Sentent.  Dionys.  4. 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


1 15 

tion  of  the  Son  from  the  Father.  The  term  ‘made’  he  had  used 
only  in  a  wide  and  vague  sense,  —  not  in  the  sense  of  an  artificer, 
but  more  as  a  philosopher  is  said  to  be  the  maker  of  his  own  dis¬ 
course,  or  as  men  are  said  to  be  “doers  of  the  law,”  or  even  as  it 
is  applied  to  inward  qualities,  such  as  virtue  or  vice.1  At  the  same 
time,  he  had  also  said  that  the  Word  was  like  “  a  river  from  a 
well,  and  a  shoot  from  a  stock,”  as  “light  from  light,”  and  “life 
from  life.”2  He  did  not  object  to  the  word  ‘Homoousios’  if  it 
were  not  understood  as  confounding  the  persons.3  It  helps  to 
explain  the  position  of  Dionysius  to  bear  in  mind  that  the  third 
synod  at  Antioch  (268),  in  the  case  of  Paul  of  Samosata,  rejected 
this  term,  doubtless  for  the  reason  which  prompted  the  objection 
of  Dionysius.  How  strenuously  the  Roman  bishop  protested 
against  all  language  implying  that  the  Son  was  made,  may  be 
seen  in  a  copious  extract  given  by  Athanasius.4  He  calls  it  blas¬ 
phemy.  The  “divine  triad”  is  to  be  preserved,  and  at  the  same 
time  “  the  holy  preaching  of  the  Monarchy.”  5  Both  the  eminent 
bishops,  who  seemed  at  first  to  be  on  the  edge  of  a  conflifct, 
were  united  against  whatever  called  itself  Sabellianism.  The 
Alexandrian  in  answer  to  objections  from  the  Sabellian  side,  as 
was  natural,  magnified  subordinationism.  The  Roman  simply 
held  fast  to  unity  and  tripersonality,  with  no  philosophy  on  the 
subject. 

The  Asia  Minor  theology,  which  was  derived  from  the  Apolo¬ 
gists  and  from  Irenaeus,  did  not  give  place  at  once  to  the  teaching 
of  Origen.  That  theology  was  not  without  its  effect  as  a  factor  in 
the  subsequent  shaping  of  the  orthodox  system.  The  novelties  in 
Origen’s  teaching  could  not  fail  to  evoke  dissent  among  some  who 
held  him  in  reverence,  and  opposition  from  others  who  might 
regard  him  with  less  esteem,  but  whose  views  in  general  bore  the 
impress  of  his  influence.  Among  these  partially  hostile  critics, 
forerunners  of  more  vehement  assailants  to  arise  afterwards, 
Methodius  should  be  specially  mentioned.  He  was  Bishop  of 
Olympus,  and  then  of  Patara  in  Lycia,  and  later  still  of  Tyre. 
He  died  as  a  martyr  in  31 1.  He  was  a  devoted  student  of  the 
writings  of  Plato.  In  several  of  the  writings  of  Methodius,  in 
particular  in  his  book  on  “Things  Created,”  and  his  book  on  the 
Resurrection,  he  attacked  certain  opinions  of  Origen.  He  under- 

1  Athan.,  De  Sentent.  20,  21.  4  De  Decrett.  VI. 

•  2  Ibid.  19.  3  Ibid.  18.  5  Ibid.  VI.  xxvi. 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


1 1 6 

takes  to  confute  the  doctrine  of  the  eternity  of  the  creation,  and 
the  conception  of  the  material  world  as  the  prison-house  of  the 
soul.  He  combats  Origen’s  spiritualized  conception  of  the  Res¬ 
urrection.  He  brings  forward,  also,  a  doctrine  of  “recapitulation ” 
allied  to  the  conception  of  the  headship  of  Christ  which  was  pro¬ 
pounded  by  Irenseus, —  a  teacher  whom  Methodius  in  some  other 
points  followed.  He  presented,  moreover,  a  mystical  view  of  the 
relation  of  the  Logos  to  the  race,  —  renewed  humanity,  as  a  whole, 
being  looked  upon  as  the  second  Adam.  Within  each  soul  the 
Logos,  coming  down  once  more  from  Heaven,  must  effect  a 
mysterious  spiritual  union  with  man.  As  the  means  of  attaining 
to  this  mystical  union,  it  is  not  knowledge  that  is  chiefly  valued, 
but  rather  asceticism  and  especially  virginity.  In  the  presence  of 
this  ideal  of  self-mortification  and  inward  unity  with  Christ,  His 
objective  work  does  not,  to  be  sure,  disappear,  but  retires  into  the 
background.  In  one  of  the  fragments  of  Methodius  there  is  an 
hypostatic  trias  not  dissimilar  to  Origen’s  doctrine.  There  is  the 
Father  Almighty,  uncaused  and  the  cause  of  all,  the  begotten  Son 
and  Word,  and  the  person  of  the  Spirit  and  His  procession. 
Methodius  is  far  from  discarding  allegory.  In  opposing  interpre¬ 
tations  of  Origen,  he  substitutes  one  allegory  for  another. 1  There 
were  others  besides  Methodius  who  felt  called  upon  to  come  out 
against  the  peculiar  views  of  Origen  which  clashed  with  the  tradi¬ 
tional  beliefs.  One  was  Peter,  Archbishop  of  Alexandria,  appointed 
to  this  office  a.d.  300,  who  wrote  against  Origen’s  opinion  relative 
to  the  preexistence  of  souls.  He  contended  that  the  body  and 
soul  of  Adam  were  contemporaneous  in  their  origin. 

A  striking  proof  and  illustration  of  the  substantial  victory  of  the 
theology  which  grew  up  in  connection  with  the  idea  of  the  Logos, 
a  victory  which  was  owing  in  a  great  degree  to  Origen,  is  the  fact 
of  the  introduction  into  the  baptismal  creed,  in  the  principal 
churches  of  the  East,  even  before  the  close  of  the  third  century, 
of  theological  statements  respecting  Christ  as  the  Logos,  and  His 
generation  from  the  Father  prior  to  the  creation.2  This  orthodoxy 
—  assent  to  propositions  in  theology  pertaining  to  the  person  of 
Christ  —  was  made  part  and  parcel  of  the  Christian  faith. 

1  Respecting  the  opinions  of  Methodius,  see  Harnack,  DG.  I.  696-705. 

2  On  this  point,  see  Loofs,  DG.  p.  141  (c). 


PERIOD  II 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  PATRISTIC  THEOLOGY  IN  THE  EAST 

AND  IN  THE  WEST 

In  the  East,  from  a.d.  300  to  the  Death  of  John  of  Damascus 
(c.  754) ;  in  the  West,  to  Gregory  I  (c.  a.d.  600) 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  CONTROVERSY  WITH  HEATHENISM  —  THE  DANGER  OF  DIVISION 
- THE  SEAT  OF  AUTHORITY - THE  CANON,  SCRIPTURE  AND  TRA¬ 
DITION - THE  GROUNDS  OF  THEISTIC  BELIEF 

The  Dioclesian  persecution  proved  that  Christianity  in  the 
Roman  Empire  was  not  to  be  extirpated  by  force.  The  Church 
was  inspired  with  a  consciousness  of  strength.  No  doubt  this  was 
owing  in  no  inconsiderable  degree  to  the  political  triumph  of  the 
Christian  cause.  It  was  felt  to  be  safe  under  the  shield  of  impe¬ 
rial  protection.  The  result  of  the  reaction  under  Julian  (361-3) 
plainly  showed  that  heathenism  had  not  vitality  enough  to  enable 
it  to  regain  its  ascendency.  Events  and  changes  running  through 
a  number  of  centuries  had  provided  the  defenders  of  the  old 
religion  with  some  new  materials  for  assault,  and  the  Church  with 
some  fresh  grounds  both  of  attack  and  defence.  This  is  illus¬ 
trated  in  the  literary  attack  of  the  Emperor  Julian  and  in  the 
refutation  of  it  by  Cyril  of  Alexandria.  Julian  directs  his  assault 
.  partly  against  the  Old  Testament.  He  charges  the  narrators  of 
the  creation  and  of  the  early  history  of  mankind  with  absurdity. 
He  animadverts  upon  the  Old  Testament  conception  of  God  as 
concerned  for  only  one  nation,  to  the  exclusion  of  the  rest  of 
mankind,  and  to  the  ascription  in  it  of  human  passions  to  the 
Deity.  Christians  have  forsaken  the  old  divinities  for  Judaism, 

“7 


1 1 8 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


the  religion  of  a  despicable  people.  Yet  they  have  abandoned  its 
legally  ordained  rites  and  have  violated  its  laws  by  paying  divine 
honors  to  a  deceased  man.  It  was  easy  for  Cyril  to  meet  these 
and  like  reproaches  by  pointing  out  the  psedagogical  nature  of  the 
old  dispensation.  But  it  was  not  so  easy  to  dispose  of  the  accu¬ 
sation  that  Christians  had  deserted  the  doctrine  of  their  Master 
when  they  persecuted  heathen  and  heretics,  worshipped  martyrs, 
and  treated  as  sacred  their  graves  and  monuments.  The  standing 
accusation  of  the  heathen  was  that  after  Christianity  had  begun 
to  flourish,  the  Roman  Empire  had  been  stripped  of  its  former 
glory  and  been  afflicted  with  numberless  disasters.  At  the  close 
of  the  fourth  century  this  complaint  was  heard  everywhere  in  the 
West.  It  was  taken  up  by  Augustine  in  his  great  work  De  Civi- 
tate  Dei ,  wherein  he  brings  forward  the  fact  that  calamities,  great 
and  various,  had  befallen  Rome  before  Christ  was  born,  and  the 
principle  that  earthly  good  fortune  is  not  always  associated  with 
true  virtue.  The  prosperity  which  Rome  had  enjoyed  had  been 
bestowed  upon  her,  not  by  the  pagan  divinities,  but  by  the  only 
living  God.  The  City  of  God,  the  divine  State,  has  been  from 
the  beginning  the  end  and  aim  of  God’s  Providence.  This  City 
embraces  in  it  all  sincere  worshippers  of  the  true  God,  who  will 
finally  attain  to  everlasting  blessedness.-  In  contrast  with  the  City 
of  God  is  the  City  of  the  World,  composed  of  the  wicked,  who 
may  be  possessed  of  earthly  bliss,  but  are  destined  to  everlasting 
misery.  Early  apologetic  writers,  as  Tatian  and  Tertullian,  had 
not  confined  themselves  to  the  defensive,  but  had  carried  the  war 
into  the  enemy’s  camp.  They  had  assailed  the  doctrines  and  rites 
of  heathenism.  The  same  is  true  of  the  later  Apologists.  The 
futility  of  the  attempt  to  justify  the  old  religion  by  an  allegorical 
treatment  of  its  mythology,  after  faith  in  it  had  vanished  from 
cultivated  minds,  was  exposed.  Eusebius  of  Caesarea  dwells  on 
the  contradictory  character  of  the  symbolical  explanations.  He 
insists  that  by  them  religion  is  transformed  into  physics,  and  that 
atheism  is  the  logical  outcome.  Augustine  deals  in  the  same  way 
with  the  heathen  allegorists.  As  to  the  philosophers,  they  were 
charged  by  Christian  writers  with  having  borrowed  their  best  ideas 
from  Moses  and  the  prophets,  and  with  being  at  swords’  points 
among  themselves  on  fundamental  issues.  They  were  reproached 
with  hypocrisy  for  joining  in  the  popular  worship  when  they  knew 
it  to  be  folly.  Porphyry,  from  the  New  Platonist  School,  is  said 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


II9 

to  have  been  bitter  in  his  tone,  but  he  was  certainly  one  of  the 
keenest  assailants  of  the  Scriptures  on  the  ground  of  alleged  incon¬ 
sistencies.  The  prophecy  in  the  book  of  Daniel,  he  maintained, 
was  not  prophecy,  but  history,  the  book  being  by  a  later  Macca- 
bean  author.  It  is  to  be  regretted  that  the  reply  to  Porphyry  by 
Eusebius  has  not  been  preserved.  He  was  the  most  learned  of 
the  Apologists.  The  Prceparatio  Evangelica  and  the  Demonstratio 
Evangelica  are  really  two  parts  of  one  work.  The  earlier  part  is 
devoted  to  showing  that  in  renouncing  the  Greek  religion  and 
philosophy  and  in  accepting  the  Hebrew  Scriptures,  Christians 
have  not  been  actuated  by  blind  faith,  but  by  good  and  sufficient 
reasons.  The  later  part,  which  we  have  in  an  incomplete  form, 
vindicates  them  for  departing  from  Judaism,  and  proves  the  corre¬ 
spondence  of  the  Christian  truths  with  prophecy.  Eusebius  shows 
that  the  character  of  Jesus  is  incompatible  with  an  intention  to 
deceive,  and  that  fraud  in  the  case  of  the  Apostles  is  out  of  the 
question,  owing  to  the  injunction  to  be  truthful  which  Christ  had 
laid  upon  them,  to  the  circumstance  that  their  testimony  brought 
to  them  no  gain,  but  only  loss,  and  to  the  candor  with  which  they 
record  their  own  faults.  The  argument  from  miracles  and  prophe¬ 
cies  continued  to  be  urged  by  Apologists.  A  new  force  was  given 
to  the  proof  from  the  spread  of  Christianity  in  the  face  of  all  its 
adversaries  and  from  its  victory,  notwithstanding  the  seeming  weak¬ 
ness  and  insignificance  of  its  founders.  Its  doctrines  were  con¬ 
sidered  foolish ;  yet  even  the  doctrine  of  the  divinity  of  Christ, 
who  perished  on  the  cross,  had  won  its  way  to  acceptance. 

The  Church  in  the  first  three  centuries  had  done  more  than  to 
maintain  itself  against  violence  and  coercion,  and  against  the 
weapons  of  argument  and  ridicule.  It  had  so  far  preserved  the 
integrity  of  its  doctrine  as  to  avoid  a  fusion  or  compromise  with 
parties  whose  creeds  incorporated  a  large  admixture  of  heathen 
speculation.  It  had  rejected  from  its  theology  Ebionitism  and 
Sabellianism.  Its  teaching  respecting  Christ  had  been  developed 
on  the  basis  of  the  conception  of  the  Logos,  and  of  the  instru¬ 
mentality  of  the  Logos  in  the  work  of  creation  and  of  redemp¬ 
tion.  The  system  of  Origen  and  his  influence  constitute  a  fact  of 
capital  importance  in  relation  to  the  period  of  theological  history 
that  was  now  to  open.  He  had  distinguished  faith  from  phi¬ 
losophy.  He  had  avowedly  left  many  problems  unsolved.  More¬ 
over,  his  positive  teaching  contained  elements  which,  if  not 


120 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


strictly  inharmonious,  were  capable  of  leading  different  inter¬ 
preters  in  diverse  directions.  We  shall  find  that,  in  the  progress 
of  theological  discussions  and  conflicts,  his  distinction  of  faith  and 
philosophy  vanished,  that  the  neutral  ground,  if  one  may  so  term 
it,  was  taken  within  the  enclosure  of  dogma,  that  his  questionable 
opinions  were  set  aside,  and  that  finally  his  orthodoxy  was  widely 
impeached,  the  result  being  the  surrender  of  that  intellectual 
freedom  of  which  he  had  been  a  signal  example. 

Could  the  Church  be  kept  in  unity  in  its  profession  of  Christian 
doctrine,  or  would  it  break  into  antagonistic  sects?  There  were 
great  diversities  of  mental  tendency.  The  West  was  not  like  the 
East.  In  the  East,  where  thought  was  so  restless,  and  contro¬ 
versy  apt  to  be  so  heated,  such  divisions  in  matters  of  belief 
might  arise  as  would  be  fatal  to  unity  of  organization.  The 
episcopate  was  not  an  adequate  safeguard  of  unity.  No  single 
bishop  was  considered  infallible  in  his  doctrinal  verdicts.  As  to 
the  Episcopate,  as  a  whole,  how  could  it  be  expected  to  speak 
with  one  voice  ?  In  truth  the  episcopate  involved  possibilities  of  - 
endless  division.  The  great  patriarchates  which  arose  on  the 
basis  of  Constantine’s  division  of  the  Empire  into  dioceses  might 
be,  and  often  were,  at  hopeless  variance  with  one  another.  They 
might  become  centres  of  mutually  hostile  sects.  They  might 
foment  rather  than  quell  emulation  and  strife.  There  were  these 
perils,  but  there  were  forces  at  work  to  counteract  them.  The 
course  of  events  took  such  a  turn  that  the  See  of  Rome,  on  the 
whole,  maintained  its  ascendency,  and  each  of  the  other  principal 
sees  were  prevented  from  subjugating  the  others.  The  preserva¬ 
tion  of  unity  in  doctrine  was  the  effect  of  a  concurrence  of  causes, 
among  which  the  agency  of  Constantine  is  to  be  counted  among 
the  most  important.  He  was  the  powerful  guardian  of  the  unity 
of  the  Church,  and  this  unity  involved  the  profession  of  a  com¬ 
mon  creed.  Another  instrument  in  preventing  the  perpetuation 
of  dissonant  creeds  and  of  keeping  Christian  theology  from  taking 
on  a  characteristic  heathen  stamp,  was  Athanasius,  by  whom, 
notwithstanding  the  fury  of  the  tempest,  a  final  shipwreck  was 
averted.  His  name,  in  the  relation  of  a  conservator  of  unity,  has 
not  unfitly  been  coupled  with  that  of  Constantine.1 

Before  proceeding  to  relate  the  theological  history  of  the 
period,  we  have  to  touch  upon  those  presuppositions  in  respect 

1  Harnack,  Grundriss  d.  DG.  p.  142. 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


1 2  I 


to  the  seat  of  authority  and  natural  theology,  on  which  interpreta¬ 
tions  of  revealed  truth  were  grafted.  What  were  the  postulates, 
themselves  experiencing  change  from  time  to  time,  which  were 
tacitly  or  explicitly  assumed  in  discussions  of  doctrine  ? 

We  begin  with  Scripture  and  tradition.  Here  the  first  topic  is 
the  Canon.  Soon  after  the  death  of  Origen  we  find  that  the 
Epistles  of  Peter,  John,  Jude,  and  James  are  received  as  canon¬ 
ical.  They  are  spoken  of  as  a  single  group  —  James  being  at  the 
head  of  the  list  —  and  bear  the  name  of  the  “  Catholic  epistles.” 
As  an  effect  of  Origen’s  influence,  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  is 
included  among  the  Pauline  writings.  The  book  of  Revelation  is 
also  received  as  canonical  notwithstanding  the  critical  objections 
of  Dionysius  of  Alexandria.  Eusebius  leaves  undetermined  the 
question  whether  it  belongs  among  the  Homologoumena.  The 
Council  of  Nicsea  did  not  take  up  the  question  of  the  author¬ 
itative  sources  of  doctrine.  By  the  middle  of  the  fourth  century 
the  need  was  felt  for  fixing  the  limits  of  the  Canon.  As  the  6oth 
Canon  of  the  Council  of  Laodicea  (a.d.  363)  is  of  uncertain 
genuineness,  its  enumeration  of  Biblical  books  is  left  in  doubt. 
Athanasius  gives  the  name  of  Apocrypha  exclusively  to  writings 
of  heretics  bearing  the  name  of  honored  men  of  the  Bible.  He 
makes  room  for  a  class  of  books 1  which,  although  not  canonical, 
may  profitably  be  read  in  Church  assemblies  and  put  into  the 
hands  of  catechumens.  This  class  includes  our  Old  Testament 
Apocrypha,  from  which  the  twenty-two  books  of  the  Hebrew 
Canon  are  distinguished.  As  late  as  Chrysostom  the  term  ‘  Ca¬ 
nonical  ’  signifies  the  books  which  the  Church  has  fenced  off 
from  other  writings.  But  soon  this  term  comes  to  signify  the 
books  which  are  the  rule  of  faith,  and  the  word  ‘  apocryphal  ’  is 
used  to  designate  books  which  the  Church  expressly  rejects.  In 
the  latter  half  of  the  fourth  century,  the  Apocalypse  is  absent 
from  the  lists  of  Biblical  books  in  Cyril  of  Jerusalem  and  Gregory 
of  Nazianzum,  and  from  the  Canon  of  the  Council  of  Laodicea ; 
and  no  mention  of  it  is  made  by  Chrysostom  and  Theodoret. 
Later,  it  is  received  by  Cyril  of  Alexandria,  by  Basil  and  Gregory 
of  Nyssa,  as  it  had  been  by  Athanasius.  In  the  fifth  century,  its 
place  in  the  Canon  is  no  longer  doubted,  and  it  stands  in  the 
oldest  Greek  codexes.  In  the  East,  at  the  end  of  the  fourth  cen¬ 
tury,  the  Canon  had  acquired  definite  bounds,  with  the  exception 


1  dvayLvojaKdjbLepa. 


122 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


of  remaining  doubts  in  respect  to  the  Apocalypse.  In  the  West, 
the  distinction  made,  by  Hilary,  Rufinus,  and  Jerome,  between  the 
Old  Testament  Canon  and  the  Apocrypha,  had  no  influence. 
The  Council  of  Hippo  (a.d.  393),  and  that  of  Carthage  (397), 
put  the  Old  Testament  Apocrypha  in  the  same  rank  with  the 
books  of  the  Canon.  In  the  lists  of  both  these  Councils,  the 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  is  included.  It  had  gradually  been  intro¬ 
duced  among  the  Western  Churches  during  the  fourth  century, 
and  its  general  reception  was  secured  by  the  powerful  influence  of 
Augustine.  But  on  the  limits  and  contents  of  the  Canon,  there 
was  in  the  West  no  verdict  possessed  of  binding  authority  on  the 
Church  as  a  body. 

The  extent  to  which  the  legend  was  credited  that  the  books 
of  Moses  were  lost  during  the  Exile,  and  restored  by  the  pen 
of  Ezra,  through  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  the  credence  given  to  the 
notion  that  the  authors  of  the  Septuagint  version,  even  in  their 
deviations  from  the  Hebrew  text,  were  divinely  guided  in  order 
to  accommodate  the  Scriptures  to  the  heathen  —  a  notion  accepted 
by  Augustine  —  indicate  the  prevailing  idea  of  Biblical  inspiration. 
Augustine,  in  his  “  Harmony  of  the  Gospels,”  illustrates  at  once 
his  candor  and  his  faith  in  scriptural  inerrancy.  Comparing  the 
accounts  given  of  the  denials  of  Peter,  he  decides  that  Peter  at 
the  moment  was  not  where  Jesus  could  have  looked  upon  him,  and 
concludes  that  it  was  not  a  glance  proceeding  from  the  Lord  “with 
the  eyes  of  the  human  body,”  but  was  a  look  cast  from  Heaven.1 
In  scholars  like  Chrysostom  and  Jerome  there  are  indications  of  a 
more  critical  discernment  of  the  distinction  between  the  human 
and  divine  factors  in  the  composition  of  the  Scriptures.  It  is 
only  in  the  School  of  Antioch,  however,  and  especially  in  Theo¬ 
dore  of  Mopsuestia,  that  we  are  met  by  more  modern  views  of  the 
progressive  nature  of  the  Biblical  revelation,  and  by  consequent 
qualifications  of  the  doctrine  of  Inspiration. 

There  was  always  a  conservatism  of  the  past.  It  was  always 
deemed  to  be  a  valid  reason  for  condemning  an  opinion  if  it  could 
be  shown  to  be  contradictory  to  what  had  been  handed  down. 
New  opinions,  when  accepted,  were  regarded  as  an  explication  of 
doctrines  held  from  the  beginning.  Great  writers  of  the  fourth 
century,  Cyril  of  Jerusalem,  Athanasius,  Augustine,  assert  the 
sufficiency  of  the  Scriptures  to  acquaint  us  with  whatever  is 

1  B.  IV.  c.  vi.  I.e.,  the  Lord  touched  his  heart.  Cf.  V.  1681  c.,  558  a. 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


123 


essential  to  faith  and  conduct.  There  is  no  underrating  of  the 
necessity  of  having  Biblical  proof  for  what  we  are  to  believe. 
All  this  implies  that  the  contents  of  the  Scriptures  and  of  Catho¬ 
lic  tradition  are  considered  to  be  essentially  coincident.  This 
was  the  general  view,  despite  occasional  statements  in  certain 
Fathers  that  tradition  is  a  source  of  supplementary  truth.  In  the 
debates  on  Christology,  tradition  was  appealed  to  in  support 
of  a  certain  interpretation  of  passages  in  Scripture,  and  this  was 
made  a  touchstone  of  orthodoxy.  Councils  came  to  be  regarded 
as  authorized  expounders  of  the  Catholic  faith.  This  was  emi¬ 
nently  the  fact  respecting  the  general  councils,  through  which 
it  was  assumed  that  the  voice  of  the  Holy  Ghost  was  heard, 
speaking  through  and  to  the  Church.  The  decisions  were  held 
by  Augustine  to  advance  with  the  growing  insight  of  the  Church 
at  large,  the  Christian  consciousness.  He  taught  that  the  declara¬ 
tions  of  the  earlier  Councils  might  be  improved  by  those  which 
are  later.1  The  idea  of  a  progress  from  a  less  to  a  more  definite 
explication  of  doctrine  in  successive  Councils,  is  set  forth  by 
Vincent  of  Lerins,  with  whom  originates  the  traditional  test  of 
orthodox  doctrine ;  namely,  that  it  must  have  been  believed 
always,  everywhere,  and  by  all.  With  the  rise  of  general  councils, 
the  old  appeal  to  Apostolic  succession  as  securing  the  transmission 
of  Apostolic  teaching,  fell  into  the  background. 

In  this  period  it  was  universally  considered  that  the  Church 
is  the  ark  of  safety,  within  which  alone  salvation  is  possible. 
In  the  East  as  in  the  West  it  was  the  visible  Church  to  which  this 
distinction  was  attached.  It  is  remarkable  that  in  the  East,  while 
there  grew  up  an  immovable  orthodoxy  resting  upon  the  councils 
and  the  Fathers  and  embodying  likewise  the  whole  system  of 
symbolical  rites,  comparatively  little  was  done  to  formulate  a 
doctrine  respecting  the  Church.  In  the  West,  on  the  contrary, 
in  the  age  of  Augustine,  in  connection  with  contention  against 
antagonistic  parties  and  opinions,  the  distinction  between  the 
ideal  and  the  actual  Church,  and  the  criteria  of  the  Church 
as  distinguished  from  sects,  received,  as  will  be  hereafter  ex¬ 
plained,  an  exposition  that  became  authoritative.  The  Roman 
bishops  gained  an  increasing  influence  as  arbiters  in  doctrinal 

1  Cont.  Donatist.  II.  c.  3.  ‘  Emendari  ’  is  the  term  used.  It  is  not  safe 

to  infer  that  he  meant  anything  more  than  the  determination  of  points  left 
ambiguous  or  undecided.  See  Neander,  Ch.  Hist.,  Vol.  II.  p.  210. 


124 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


disputes.  Their  supreme  judicial  authority  was  distinctly  asserted 
by  Leo  I. 

That  a  true  knowledge  of  God  is  attainable  only  by  Revela¬ 
tion,  and  especially  through  Christ,  was  the  common  opinion. 
This,  however,  did  not  deter  the  Fathers  from  bringing  forward 
evidences  for  the  being  of  God  from  the  light  of  nature.  For 
example,  the  proof  from  design  in  material  nature  is  sometimes 
urged,1  as  well  as  the  cosmological  argument  from  the  mutable 
character  of  the  world  of  things  finite.  The  lack  of  purity  of 
soul  is  said  by  Athanasius  to  be  the  hindrance  to  the  perception  of 
God,2  and  the  same  thing  is  taught  by  Gregory  of  Nazianzum. 
Theologians  —  as  Augustine  —  imbued  with  New  Platonism, 
found  the  belief  in  God  on  an  ontological  ground.  Yet  Augus¬ 
tine  sees  a  testimony  to  God  in  the  heavens  and  the  earth  and  in 
all  things,  by  which  disbelievers  are  made  inexcusable.  Like 
utterances  are  frequent  in  both  the  Greek  and  Latin  Fathers. 
Where  the  conception  of  the  Divine  Being  was  New  Platonic,  our 
knowledge  of  Him  was  made  to  be  not  objective,  but  relative 
to  our  limited  apprehension.  Creation  was  a  free  act  of  God, 
through  the  Logos,  the  repository  of  the  ideas  realized  in  cre¬ 
ation.  The  end  of  creation  was  the  manifestation  of  the  divine 
goodness  and  the  imparting  of  a  share  in  the  divine  blessedness. 
From  the  end  of  the  third  century,  angels  and  demons  assume 
a  constantly  increasing  prominence  in  the  thoughts  of  Christians. 
Constantine  named  a  church  after  Michael,  but  this  was  not  a 
dedication  of  the  edifice  to  him.  It  only  signified  that  he  was 
believed  to  appear  in  it.3  The  Council  of  Laodicea,  about  a.d. 
360,  forbade  the  worship  of  angels,4  but  the  only  check  to  the 
practice  was  found  subsequently  in  efforts  to  draw  a  line  between 
that  homage  which  was  admissible  and  the  rendering  of  divine 
honors,  which  was  prohibited. 

1  E.g.  Greg.  Naz.  Or  at.  XXVIII.  6,  XIV.  33.  August.  Conf  X.  6. 

2  Adv.  Gent.  I.  3.  3  Sozomen.  H.E.  II.  3. 

4  Canon  35.  It  forbids  “a  cultus  of  the  angels”  and  styles  it  a  “  hidden 

idolatry.”  Hefele  contends  that  this  was  not  intended  to  exclude  “  a  regu¬ 
lated  worship  of  angels.”  Hist,  of  Councils,  I,  p.  317. 


CHAPTER  II 


DOCTRINES  CONVERTED  INTO  DOGMAS - CHURCH  AND  STATE - 

THE  GREAT  CONTROVERSIES - THE  ECCLESIASTICAL  WRITERS,  EAST 

AND  WEST 

We  are  now  familiar  with  the  fact  that  during  the  first  three 
centuries  the  struggle  of  the  Church  in  the  field  of  doctrine  was 
with  Judaism  and  Heathenism,  and  with  systems  compounded  of 
both  or  embracing  elements  deeply  antagonistic  to  Christian  truth. 
In  this  period  of  self-defence,  carried  forward  on  the  basis  of  a 
common  faith,  there  were  brought  forward  doctrinal  conceptions, 
interpretations  of  the  Gospel,  more  or  less  tentative  and  differing 
from  one  another.  Now  the  Church,  except  in  the  short  reign  of 
Julian,  is  neither  molested  by  persecution  from  without,  nor,  save 
in  a  comparatively  small  degree,  by  alien  speculations  arising  be¬ 
yond  its  borders.  The  area  of  controversy  is  within  the  Church. 
Conflicting  tendencies  are  pushed  in  different  directions.  Con¬ 
tests  necessarily  spring  up,  which  extend  far  and  wide.  In  the 
turmoil,  while  there  is  much  sincerity  and  honest  zeal,  human 
passions  inevitably  mingle.  The  grounds  of  mutual  sympathy  are 
frequently  forgotten,  and  intellectual  differences,  not  reaching  to 
the  essentials  of  the  Gospel,  provoke  bitter  warfare  and  division. 
In  this  great  productive  period  of  doctrinal  history,  when  so  many 
theological  leaders  expounded  the  Gospel  in  a  positive  form,  or 
crossed  swords  in  debate,  certain  main  doctrines  through  the  action 
of  oecumenical  Councils  were  converted  into  dogmas.  This  is 
one  characteristic  of  the  present  period  in  contrast  with  the  era 
which  preceded  it. 

Another  defining  characteristic  is  the  interference  of  the  State 
in  doctrinal  controversies.  The  Church  was  contemplated  as  a 
unity.  Its  unity  was  one  of  the  main  pillars  of  the  unity  of  the 
Empire.  Even  on  political  grounds  uniformity  in  doctrinal 

I25 


126 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


teaching  was  considered  indispensable.  Christian  Emperors  as¬ 
sume  the  part  of  custodians  of  orthodoxy.  More  and  more,  es¬ 
pecially  in  the  East,  where  the  Empire  continued  in  the  vigorous 
exercise  of  authority,  they  use  force  for  the  extermination  of  her¬ 
esy.  Their  authority  is  often  invoked  by  contending  parties.  It 
is  by  the  Emperors  that  the  general  councils  are  called  together, 
and  in  the  doings  of  these  assemblies  their  will  is  potent.  The 
tide  of  battle  turns  to  one  side  or  the  other,  according  as  one 
or  another  Court  faction  gets  the  upper  hand.  At  length  the 
Byzantine  rulers  undertake  practically  to  exercise  a  kind  of  Cae¬ 
sarian  papacy.  The  humiliation  of  the  Roman  bishops  in  the 
short  interval  of  active  Byzantine  supremacy  in  Italy,  after  its 
conquest  by  the  generals  of  Justinian,  shows  how  much  the  spir¬ 
itual  power  of  the  See  of  Rome  was  indebted  for  its  growth  to 
its  isolation  as  regards  secular  interference. 

The  second  period  comprises,  loosely  speaking,  the  second 
three  centuries.  But  as  far  as  the  East  is  concerned,  it  properly 
includes  the  Monothelite  Controversy,  the  last  phase  of  the  de¬ 
bate  respecting  the  two  natures  of  Christ.  A  not  unsuitable  ter¬ 
minus  is  the  death  of  John  of  Damascus,  the  last  eminent  Greek 
theologian,  about  754,  although  he  might  be  not  unfitly  classified 
among  the  Scholastic  authors.  In  the7  West,  the  second  period 
carries  us  to  the  death  of  Gregory  I.  (a.d.  604).  He  stands  on 
the  line  of  division  between  the  ancient  and  the  mediaeval  age. 

In  Philosophy,  while  Platonism  is  still  largely  in  the  ascendant 
in  the  Church,  and  exerts  a  proportionate  influence  on  Church 
doctrine,  there  is  an  advance  in  the  influence  of  Aristotle.  Es¬ 
pecially  is  this  true  of  the  dialectics  of  the  Stagyrite,  which  we 
find,  from  the  close  of  the  fourth  century,  more  and  more  called 
into  service  in  doctrinal  definitions  and  disputes.  Late  in  this 
period,  on  the  Latin  side,  Boethius  was  a  commentator  on  Aris¬ 
totle.  Occasionally  there  appeared  a  kind  of  religious  idealism, 
derived  from  a  blending  of  Christian  and  Platonic  elements,  as  in 
the  writings  of  Synesius,  Bishop  of  Ptolemais  in  Egypt,  who  died 
in  412  or  413.  The  writings  of  Pseudo- Dionysius,  composed  in 
Egypt,  probably  late  in  the  fifth  century,  are  permeated  by  a 
peculiar  mysticism  in  which  Platonic  and  Christian  teaching,  are 
fused  together. 

An  important  fact  in  the  doctrinal  history  of  this  period  is  the 
appearance  and  enduring  influence  of  two  rival  schools  in  theol- 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


127 


ogy,  the  school  of  Alexandria  and  that  of  Antioch  in  Syria.  In 
this  place  it  is  sufficient  to  say  that  while  the  Alexandrians  made 
the  most  of  the  divine  factor  in  the  person  of  Christ  and  in  re¬ 
demption,  planting  themselves  on  an  uncompromising  supernat¬ 
uralism,  the  Antiochians  attributed  to  the  human  factor  a  larger 
determining  agency. 

A  noteworthy  event  in  this  period  is  the  spread  in  the  Roman 
Empire  of  Manichaeism,  a  system  originating  (245  a.d.)  with 
Mani,  a  Persian  religious  teacher.  He  incorporated  in  his  system 
notions  in  religion  which  were  imbibed  from  the  Mandaeans  or 
other  sects  of  “  Baptisers,”  whose  creed  was  tinged  with  Christian 
elements.  Manichaeism  was  rather  a  distinct  religion  than  a 
Christian  heresy.  Its  groundwork  was  the  Semitic  or  Babylo¬ 
nian  religion,  although  Persian  beliefs  were  involved  in  it.  Mani 
was  put  to  death  in  276  for  his  deviation  from  the  orthodox  Par- 
sic  religion.  He  held  to  dualism,  —  a  kingdom  of  light  and  a 
kingdom  of  darkness.  Through  Satan,  a  product  of  the  kingdom 
of  darkness,  both  these  elements  were  mingled  in  human  nature. 
Deliverance  is  accomplished  by  a  physical  process,  and  is  the 
achievement  of  a  succession  of  prophets,  of  whom  the  celestial 
Christ  —  not  the  Jesus  of  the  Jews  —  is  one.  Mani  himself  was 
the  promised  Paraclete.  The  system  was  ascetic  as  well  as  dual- 
istic.  At  the  head  of  the  sect  were  twelve  apostles.  The  “  elect  ” 
were  a  class  above  the  “  auditors  ”  or  novices.  The  Manichsean 
converts  were  very  numerous  in  the  East  as  well  as  the  West. 
The  curiosity  and  hope  kindled  by  its  mysteries  and  its  promise 
of  illumination  attracted  many  desponding  or  skeptical  minds. 
For  nine  years  Augustine  was  an  “  auditor.”  From  the  time  of 
Diocletian,  the  Manichseans  were  under  the  ban  of  the  civil 
power.  Under  Justinian,  to  be  a  Manichsean  was  a  capital 
offence. 

The  interest  in  the  doctrinal  history  of  this  period  centres 
in  several  great  controversies  respecting  cardinal  points  in  the 
Christian  faith.  These  are,  first,  the  Arian  Controversy,  on  the 
relation  of  Christ  to  God  and  on  the  Trinity ;  second,  the  Christ- 
ological  Controversy,  on  the  person  of  Christ ;  third,  the  Pelagian 
Controversy,  on  Sin  and  the  function  of  Grace  in  man’s  recovery. 
Theology,  Christology,  Anthropology,  are  the  several  themes. 
The  “  Origenistic  Controversies  ”  were  of  much  moment,  and 
covered  incidentally  a  variety  of  topics,  besides  the  question  of 


✓ 


1 28 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


the  doctrinal  soundness  of  the  great  Alexandrian.  The  course 
of  theological  discussion  in  the  East,  from  the  beginning  of  the 
fourth  century,  developed  an  increasing  sense  of  the  importance 
of  orthodoxy  in  opinion,  a  growing  deference  for  tradition  as 
dictating  what  ought  to  be  believed,  a  narrowing  of  the  space 
open  to  speculation  and  diversity  of  thought.  The  idea  of  prog¬ 
ress  in  theology  became  more  and  more  repugnant.  Some  of 
Origen’s  opinions,  as  we  have  seen,  had  been  avowedly  esoteric. 
Portions  of  his  teaching  were  taken  as  the  starting-point  of  move¬ 
ments  recognized  as  heretical.  Personal  and  partisan  motives 
mingled  among  the  causes  of  the  ultimately  successful  crusade 
against  the  theological  standing  of  the  Father  of  Greek  Theology, 
whom  Athanasius  had  held  in  honor.  Like  influences  were  opera¬ 
tive  with  similar  results,  against  the  repute  of  the  most  eminent 
leaders  of  the  Antiochian  school. 

In  the  East,  where  Greek  tendencies  prevailed,  it  was  the 
more  speculative  side  of  Christianity,  the  subjects  of  the  Trinity 
and  the  relation  of  the  two  natures  in  the  person  of  Christ,  that 
were  ever  in  the  foreground.  In  the  West,  it  was  rather  the 
doctrine  of  sin,  and  the  subject  of  the  will  in  relation  to  Grace, 
that  especially  attracted  attention.  The  West  was  not  an  indif¬ 
ferent  spectator  of  the  conflicts  of  the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries 
in  the  East.  It  was  obliged,  especially  at  important  crises,  to 
take  some  part  in  them.  The  position  of  Rome  was  not  unlike 
that  of  a  powerful  neutral,  prone  to  be  steadfast  and  conservative 
and  able  on  several  great  occasions  to  speak  the  decisive  word. 
Greek  theological  writers  were  introduced  by  translations  and 
otherwise  to  the  knowledge  of  Western  readers,  and  perceptibly 
modified  opinion.  On  the  other  hand,  the  great  Master  of  Latin 
Theology  had  no  influence  in  the  East.  The  effect  of  his  teaching 
was  confined  by  Latin  boundaries.  In  speaking  of  the  theological 
peculiarity  of  the  East,  it  is  necessary  to  guard  against  exaggera¬ 
tion.  If  the  Greek  teachers  emphasized  mainly  the  Incarnation 
and  the  fellowship  with  God  thereby  brought  to  mankind,  another 
side  of  the  work  of  Christ,  that  which  had  among  the  Latins 
greater  prominence,  was  far  from  being  ignored.  “  That  the  work 
of  Christ  was  his  achievement  (Leistung),”  says  Harnack,  “  that 
it  culminates  in  his  sacrificial  death  (Todesopfer),  that  it  signifies 
the  vanquishing  and  efficacy  of  the  guilt  of  sin,  that  salvation 
consequently  consists  in  the  forgiveness,  the  justification,  and  the 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


129 


adoption  of  man,  are  thoughts  which  in  no  Church  Father  are 
wholly  absent.  In  some  they  stand  out  boldly.  In  the  case  of 
most  they  make  their  way  into  the  explication  of  the  dogma  of 
redemption.”  1  It  must  not  be  overlooked  that  the  best  of  the 
Greek  Fathers  —  Athanasius  is  a  striking  example  —  if  they 
seemed  to  be  contending  for  a  metaphysical  distinction,  had  at 
heart  the  interest  of  practical  piety,  which  they  judged  to  be 
identified  with  it.  Nevertheless,  the  love  of  contention  on  nice 
speculative  points  might  easily,  even  in  the  popular  mind,  become 
a  malady  quite  harmful  to  genuine  devoutness  and  destructive  of 
Christian  charity.  A  graphic  picture  of  “  the  rage  ”  for  doctrinal 
disputation  at  Constantinople,  during  the  Arian  Controversy,  is 
drawn  by  Gregory  of  Nyssa:2  “  Every  corner  and  nook  of  the 
city  is  full  of  men  who  discuss  incomprehensible  subjects ;  the 
streets,  the  markets,  the  people  who  sell  old  clothes,  those 
who  sit  at  the  tables  of  the  money-changers,  those  who  deal  in 
provisions.  Ask  a  man  how  many  oboli  it  comes  to,  he  gives  you 
a  specimen  of  dogmatizing  on  generated  and  unregenerated  being. 
Inquire  the  price  of  bread,  you  are  answered,  ‘  the  Father  is 
greater  than  the  Son  and  the  Son  subordinate  to  the  Father.’ 
Ask  if  the  bath  is  ready,  and  you  are  answered,  ‘  the  Son  of  God 
was  created  from  nothing.’  ” 

We  have  now  to  glance  at  the  principal  writers  in  this  age,  so 
prolific  in  authorship.  We  begin  with  the  Alexandrians.  One  of 
the  last  of  the  Catechetical  Teachers  was  Didymus,  who  died  in 
395.  Although  he  was  blind  from  his  childhood,  he  was  one  of 
the  most  learned  men  of  his  time.  Of  most  of  his  works  only 
fragments  remain.  Athanasius  was  bishop  from  328  until  his 
death  in  373.  His  principal  writings  relate  to  the  Trinity.  Among 
these  his  four  Discourses  against  the  Arians  is  the  work  of  chief 
importance.  As  there  is  a  unity  of  purpose  in  his  life,  so  is  there 
a  singleness  of  aim  in  his  literary  productions.  His  “immortal 
name,”  says  Gibbon,  “will  never  be  separated  from  the  Catholic 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  to  whose  defence  he  consecrated  every 
moment  and  every  faculty  of  his  being.”3  His  writings,  which 
are  tainted  with  no  false  rhetoric,  breathe  the  earnestness  that 
belonged  to  his  character.  Unhappily  deficient  in  the  spirit  of 

1  DG.  II.  50. 

2  De  Deitat.  Fil.  et  Spirit.  Sanct.  See  Neander,  Ch.  Hist.  II.  423  n. 

3  Decline  and  Fall ,  Vol.  III.  p.  69  (Smith’s  ed.). 

K 


130 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


wisdom  and  love  which  characterized  the  first  great  foe  of  the 
Arians,  was  the  later  Alexandrian,  the  Patriarch  Cyril,  who  died 
in  444.  Among  his  works,  which  include  a  treatise  on  the  Trinity, 
besides  Epistles,  Commentaries,  etc.,  the  most  noteworthy  is  his 
polemical  production  (in  five  books)  against  Nestorius.  Here 
we  may  place  a  reference  to  a  number  of  authors  who  exhibit  the 
tone  of  the  earlier  Alexandrian  School  and  illustrate  the  profound 
influence  of  Origen.  One  of  them  was  Eusebius  of  Caesarea,  who 
was  bishop  there  from  315  to  340.  He  is  best  known  through 
his  Church  History  and  his  eulogistic  Life  of  Constantine ;  al¬ 
though  much  importance  belongs  to  his  apologetic  and  exegetic 
writings.  Under  the  same  category  belong  the  three  Cappado¬ 
cian  Fathers,  who,  like  Origen,  were  proficients  in  classical  learn¬ 
ing,  and  were  likewise  imbued  with  Origen’s  humane  and  tolerant 
temper.  Basil,  Bishop  of  Caesarea,  called  Basil  the  Great,  is 
famous  as  an  administrator  and  as  the  great  patron  of  the  mo¬ 
nastic  life,  and  for  his  instructive  Letters,  which  afford  a  picture 
of  the  times.  Yet  he  was  the  author  of  other  works  —  the  Hexae- 
meron,  for  example,  treating  of  the  Six  Days  of  Creation.  In 
the  capacity  of  a  defender  of  the  Nicene  doctrine,  he  wrote  his 
book  against  Eunomius,  and  his  Writing  on  the  Holy  Spirit. 
Gregory  of  Nazianzum,  for  a  short  time  Bishop  of  Constantinople, 
the  intimate  friend  of  Basil,  was  surnamed,  for  the  ability  of  his 
discussions  on  the  Trinity,  “the  Theologian.”  He  was  a  brilliant 
orator.  He  wrote  against  Julian,  and  was  the  author  of  numerous 
orations,  essays,  letters,  and  poems.  He  died  in  390.  Gregory 
of  Nyssa,  the  brother  of  Basil,  was  more  speculative  in  his  dog¬ 
matic  writings  than  the  two  Fathers  just  named.  His  leading 
work  is  the  treatise  against  Eunomius.  His  teaching  has  always 
been  regarded  with  profound  reverence  in  the  Greek  Church. 
In  connection  with  a  list  of  disciples  of  Origen  may  be  put,  by 
the  association  of  contrast,  the  name  of  Epiphanius,  Bishop  of 
Salamis,  in  Cyprus,  who  died  at  an  advanced  age  in  403.  An 
ecclesiastic  of  very  wide  influence,  but  of  an  intolerant  spirit,  and 
untiring  in  his  hostility  to  Origen,  he  left  as  his  principal  work  his 
uncritical  but  invaluable  Panarion ,  or  Drug-Chest.  Here  he  de¬ 
scribes  eighty  heresies  and  undertakes  to  furnish  the  proper  anti¬ 
dotes  of  sound  doctrine.  Among  the  most  prominent  Syrian 
teachers  were  Eusebius  of  Emisa,  who  died  about  360,  an  effec¬ 
tive  defender  of  the  Nicene  theology,  Cyril,  Bishop  of  Jerusalem 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


131 

(who  died  in  386),  whose  Catechetics  exhibits  instructively  the 
character  of  the  popular  teaching  then  in  vogue,  and  Ephraim 
Syrus,  who  died  about  378,  a  copious  author,  by  whom  Greek 
theological  science  was  introduced  into  Syria.  There  are  three 
foremost  representatives  of  the  Antiochian  school.  The  first  is 
Chrysostom,  who  was  born  in  347  and  died  in  407,  the  most  cele¬ 
brated  of  the  ancient  preachers.  His  theology  is  to  be  studied  in 
his  exegetical  homilies,  but  with  due  allowance  for  the  circumstance 
that  they  are  popular  discourses.  The  second  is  Theodore,  Bishop 
of  Mopsuestia  from  393  to  428,  a  great  light  in  the  Antiochian 
school,  whose  commentaries,  as  far  as  they  are  extant,  exist  partly 
in  the  original  Greek  and  partly  in  Oriental  translations.  They 
exemplify  the  grammatical  and  historical  style  of  exegesis  which 
was  characteristic  of  the  Antiochians,  in  contrast  with  the  Origen- 
istic  and  Philonian  method  of  allegory.  The  third  of  the  leading 
Antiochians  is  Theodoret,  Bishop  in  Cyrus  in  Syria  (west  of  the 
Euphrates)  from  423  to  his  death,  about  457.  He  wrote  com¬ 
mentaries  on  the  whole  Old  Testament,  with  the  exception  of 
Proverbs,  Ecclesiastes,  and  Job,  a  continuation  of  the  Church 
History  of  Eusebius  from  322  to  428,  apologetic  and  polemical 
writings,  and  numerous  letters  of  value.  The  other  continuators 
of  Eusebius  are  Socrates  (from  306-439),  Sozomen  (323-423), 
and  Evagrius  (431-594). 

We  turn  to  the  Latin  Writers  of  the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries. 
Hilary  was  bishop  in  his  native  place  Poictiers,  from  about  350 
to  his  death  in  368.  He  was  a  highly  cultivated  man  prior  to 
his  conversion  to  Christianity.  A  supporter  of  the  Athanasian 
theology  in  opposition  to  Constantine,  he  was  banished  and  spent 
a  number  of  years  in  the  Asiatic  provinces,  where  he  increased 
his  acquaintance  with  the  Greek  language.  In  his  exegetical 
writings  he  was  influenced  in  a  marked  degree  by  Origen.  An 
able  man  and  independent  in  his  thoughts,  he  defended  in  several 
treatises  —  as  the  de  Synodis ,  the  de  Fide  —  the  Nicene  doctrine 
against  its  adversaries.  Jerome,  who  was  born  on  the  border 
between  Dalmatia  and  Pannonia,  spent  his  life  partly  in  the  East, 
and  became  in  a  scholarly  way  a  connecting  link  between  the 
East  and  the  West.  Originally  a  disciple  of  Origen,  he  was 
transformed  into  a  vehement  opponent.  He  served  the  Church 
mainly  through  his  extensive  learning.  By  revising  the  old  Latin 
translations  of  the  New  Testament,  and  rendering  the  Old  Testa- 


132 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


ment  from  the  Hebrew  into  the  Latin,  he  became  the  framer 
of  the  Vulgate  Version.  Rufinus  was  an  Italian  by  birth.  He 
was  born  about  340.  He  rendered  important  service  as  a  trans¬ 
lator  of  Origen,  of  whom  he  was  a  devoted  admirer  and  defender. 
His  “  Exposition  of  the  Apostolic  Symbol  ”  furnishes  us  with  valu¬ 
able  information  respecting  its  history.  He  died  in  410.  Am¬ 
brose,  the  Archbishop  of  Milan,  was  born  in  340  and  died  in  398. 
As  far  as  his  writings  relating  to  doctrine  are  concerned,  he  was 
dependent  on  Origen,  Athanasius,  Basil,  and  others,  and  in  set¬ 
ting  forth  the  duties  of  the  clergy  he  did  not  hesitate  to  refashion 
the  de  Officiis  of  Cicero.  Yet  in  his  teaching,  as  in  ecclesiastical 
administration,  he  displayed  the  qualities  of  a  strong,  self-respect¬ 
ing  mind.  On  the  subjects  of  sin  and  the  relation  of  the  will  to 
divine  grace,  he  deviated  from  the  Greek  teachers,  and  paved 
the  way  for  Augustine. 

Of  the  characteristics  of  Augustine  and  of  his  influence  more 
will  be  said  hereafter.  He  was  a  voluminous  author.  His  mind 
was  in  perpetual  motion.  He  was  a  deep  thinker,  but  was  one 
who  wrote  mostly  in  response  to  practical  exigencies.  His  opin¬ 
ions  did  not  remain  unaltered,  and  his  Retractationes  are  a 
review  and  partial  correction  of  earlier  utterances.  He  composed 
works,  such  as  the  Cont?'a  Academicos ,  relating  chiefly  to  phi¬ 
losophy  and  specifically  to  the  philosophy  of  religion.  His  con¬ 
troversial  writings  are  in  opposition  to  the  Manichseans,  the 
Donatists,  and  the  Pelagians.  Apart  from  polemics,  he  composed 
books  on  subjects  of  doctrinal  theology.  His  great  apologetic 
treatise  is  the  de  Civitate  Dei.  Beyond  the  limits  of  this  classifica¬ 
tion  fall  his  exegetical  homilies  and  other  sermons,  his  numerous 
epistles,  in  which  religious  themes  are  handled,  his  Autobiography 
under  the  title  of  Co?ifessions,  and  so  forth.  Prosper  of  Aqui¬ 
taine  was  a  zealous  advocate  of  Augustine’s  opinions,  in  the  Pela¬ 
gian  Controversy.  The  position  of  Leo  I.,  Bishop  of  Rome  from 
440  to  461,  and  the  active  part  which  he  took  in  relation  to  the 
doctrinal  disputes  of  the  time,  render  his  letters  and  sermons  of 
theological  value. 

After  the  beginning  of  the  sixth  century  the  theological  writ¬ 
ers  in  the  West  and  the  East  are  reduced  to  a  small  number. 
Boethius,  the  trusted  counsellor  of  Theodoric,  King  of  the  Ostro¬ 
goths,  and  a  victim  (in  525)  to  his  false  suspicions,  was  a  man 
of  scholarly  tastes  and  profound  acquisitions.  Through  his  studies 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


133 


in  Aristotle  and  his  book  on  the  “  Consolations  of  Philosophy  ” 
he  stimulated  thought  and  was  much  esteemed  in  the  Middle 
Ages.  Cassiodorus,  who  died  about  560,  was  first  a  statesman 
under  Theodoric  and  his  successors,  and  then  a  monk.  His  writ¬ 
ings  relate  to  history  and  theology.  John  Philoponus,  an  Aristo¬ 
telian  at  Alexandria  in  the  first  part  of  the  sixth  century,  and  a 
Monophysite  in  his  theology,  applied  his  philosophy  in  such  a 
way  to  the  Trinity  as  to  expose  himself  to  the  charge  of  being 
a  Tritheist.  Gregory,  Bishop  of  Tours  (573-595),  wrote  a  work 
on  Miracles  —  the  Miracula  —  and  an  Ecclesiastical  History  of 
the  Franks.  The  theology  of  Gregory  I.,  Bishop  of  Rome  (590- 
604),  is  to  be  learned  from  his  treatise  called  Moralia ,  founded 
on  the  book  of  Job,  and  from  his  homilies  and  letters. 


CHAPTER  III 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  TRINITY  TO  THE 
COUNCIL  OF  CONSTANTINOPLE  (a.D.  38 1 ) 

Arius  was  a  presbyter  in  the  Church  at  Alexandria.  He  had 
been  a  pupil  of  Lucian,  who  conducted  a  school  of  theology  at 
Antioch,  and  died  as  a  martyr.  Some  other  leading  men  who 
were  in  sympathy  with  Arius  had  also  been  taught  by  this  exegeti- 
cal  teacher ;  but  his  own  opinions,  probably  always,  certainly  in 
his  closing  years,  were  not  in  accord  with  the  extreme  views  which 
they  advocated.1  He  accepted  the  Origenist  doctrine  of  the 
Logos.  Arius  propounded  the  opinion  that  in  the  case  of  the 
preexistent  Christ,  generation  is  not  to  be  distinguished  from 
creation.2  He  is  the  first  of  created  '  beings,  through  whom  all 
other  things  are  made.  In  anticipation  of  the  glory  that  He  was 
to  have  finally,  He  is  called  the  Logos,  the  Son,  the  only-begotten. 
He  may  be  called  God,  although  not  God  in  the  full  reality 
implied  by  the  term.3  He  began  to  be,  not  strictly  speaking  in 
time,  but  before  time,4  since  time  begins  with  the  creation ;  yet 
He  began  to  be  from  the  non-existent  through  a  momentary  act  of 
God’s  will.5  Before  this,  “  He  was  not.”  It  was  on  account  of 
the  foresight  of  his  victory  over  temptation,  that  he  was  chosen 
of  God.  It  is  a  victory  achieved  by  the  Logos,  since  in  the  incar- 

1  Respecting  Lucian,  see  Euseb.  H.E.  viii.  13,  and  ix.  6,  and  Theodoret, 
H.E.  i.  3  (in  the  Letter  of  Alexander),  and  i.  4  (Letter  of  Arius  to  Euseb.  of 
Nic.,  “  his  fellow- Lucianist  ”).  See,  also,  Harnack,  DG.  II.  184  sq.,  and  Rob¬ 
ertson’s  Athanasius  (Nic.  and  Anti-Nic.  Fathers),  p.  xxvii.  But  a  different 
view  is  given  of  Lucian  by  Gwatkin,  Studies  of  Arianism,  p.  18  et  al.  “  There 
is  really  nothing  against  him  but  the  leaning  of  his  disciples  to  Arianism;  and 
this  can  be  otherwise  accounted  for.” 

2  yevvav  is  iroieiv.  4  irpo  xpovwv  kcu  aiwviov. 

3  aXr/divbs  Oeos.  5  e£  ovk  ’ovtuv  cUa  6eX ti/juxtos  deov. 

3  9jv  ore  ovk  ?)v  or  rrpiv  yevvydy  ovk  rjv. 

134 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


135 


nate  Christ  the  Logos  takes  the  place  of  a  rational  human  spirit. 
The  rank  assigned  to  Christ  in  the  Arian  theology  is  really  that  of 
a  demi-god.  The  demons,  the  inferior  deities,  were  styled  by  the 
heathen  ‘gods,’  and  as  such  received  a  homage  proportional  to 
their  rank.1  It  was  not  a  mistake  on  the  part  of  the  orthodox  to 
look  on  Arianism  as  in  reality  an  introduction  of  a  species  of  poly¬ 
theism  into  Christian  theology.  Arius  was  possessed  of  logical 
acumen,  was  skilful  as  a  disputant,  and  his  austere  life  helped  to 
draw  to  him  respect  and  sympathy.  Alexander,  the  Bishop  of 
Alexandria,  met  these  views  with  strenuous  resistance.  In  letters 
to  other  prominent  bishops,  he  set  forth  clearly  the  opposite  doc¬ 
trine  of  the  divinity  of  Christ,  in  which  the  defining  characteris¬ 
tics  of  the  system  of  Arius  are  denied  and  denounced.2  Arius 
likewise  sent  out  letters  to  counteract  the  influence  of  Alexander 
and  to  win  support.  In  321  or  322,  at  a  large  synod  at  Alexan¬ 
dria,  Arius  was  deposed  and  excommunicated.  He  issued  a  book 
called  Thalia ,  a  miscellaneous  collection  in  prose  and  verse,  and 
songs  for  sailors,  millers,  and  pilgrims.  In  this  method  of  propa¬ 
gating  his  opinions  he  followed  a  practice  then  in  vogue.  He 
thus  embodied  his  ideas  in  a  portable  and  easily  remembered 
form.  Eusebius  of  Nicomedia,  who  held  the  same  opinion  as 
Arius,  wrote  a  letter  to  the  Bishop  of  Tyre  in  his  favor.  Eusebius 
of  Caesarea,  who  was  an  Origenist  and  much  more  conservative 
in  his  spirit  than  the  Nicomedian  bishop,  was  in  favor  of  tolerating 
him.  Arianism  was  really  a  new  doctrine.  The  springs  of  it  can 
easily  be  seen  in  one  class  of  Origen’s  statements,  taken  apart 
from  his  teaching  as  a  whole,  and  in  expressions  like  those  of 
Dionysius  of  Alexandria.  Such  was  the  excitement  of  the  conflict 
in  Egypt,  and  so  wide-spread  was  the  agitation  elsewhere,  that  the 
Emperor  Constantine  sent  Hosius,  Bishop  of  Cordova,  his  trusted 
adviser,  to  Alexandria,  with  letters  to  the  contending  parties.  The 
disputes  were  petty,  the  Emperor  said.  The  disputants  were 
agreed  on  the  doctrine  of  Divine  Providence ;  let  them  bear  with 

1  For  the  sources  in  respect  to  what  is  left  of  the  writings  of  Arius  and  the 
history  of  the  Controversy,  see  Gwatkin,  Moller  (Art.  Arius  and  Arianis?n  in 
Real-Encycl.  I.  620  sq.),  and  Schmid-Hauck,  DG.,  p.  51;  also  Ivolling,  Gsch. 
d.  Ar.  Haresie. 

2  Letter  of  Alexander  to  the  Bp.  of  Const.,  in  Theodoret,  H.E-  I.  3.  The 
Letter  of  Alex,  to  his  fellow-ministers  of  the  Catholic  Ch.  is  in  Socrates,  II. E. 

I.  6. 


136 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


one  another  as  concerns  minor  differences.1  But  the  conflict  was 
not  to  be  pacified  so  easily.  Hosius  had  a  deeper  understanding 
of  the  grave  nature  of  the  controversy.  At  length,  in  325,  the 
Emperor  convoked  a  General  Council  at  Nicsea.2  It  consisted  of 
not  far  from  three  hundred  bishops,  almost  all  from  the  East, 
besides  a  large  attendance  from  lower  orders  in  the  ministry. 
Alexander  was  there,  and  with  him  his  archdeacon,  Athanasius, 
who  was  in  full  sympathy  with  him  and  was  destined  to  be  the 
life-long  champion  of  the  anti-Arian  doctrine.3 

The  Arians  in  Council  stood  for  their  opinion  that  the  Father 
alone  is  without  beginning,  that  the  Son  did  not  exist  prior  to  His 
generation,  which  was  by  an  act  of  the  Father’s  will,  —  “  before  all 
ages,”  to  be  sure,  since  time  began  with  the  creation.  Respect¬ 
ing  the  person  of  the  incarnate  Christ,  Arius,  as  we  have  said,  had 
espoused  the  opinion  that  in  Him  the  Logos  takes  the  place  of  the 
rational  human  spirit. 

How  far  Athanasius  was  personally  influential  in  the  Council  it 
is  impossible  to  determine.  The  conclusions  reached  were  in  full 
accordance  with  his  convictions,  and  he  was  afterwards  the  most 
renowned  and  effective  expounder  of  them.  His  theology  centres 
in  his  view  of  redemption.  Unless  Christ  is  truly  God,  is  divine 
in  the  literal  sense,  He  is  a  creature.  _  In  this  case,  in  fellowship 
with  Him  we  are  brought  no  nearer  to  God ;  the  vital  truth  of  re¬ 
demption,  union  to  God  in  virtue  of  our  union,  through  faith,  to 
Christ,  is  lost.  This  is  the  practical  motive  which  underlies  the 
doctrine  of  Athanasius.  It  was  the  inspiring  principle  of  his 
undying  hostility  to  the  Arian  formulas.  The  Arians  discarded 
Origen’s  conception  of  a  “  timeless”  or  eternal  generation.  This 
Athanasius  re-asserted.  But  the  generation  of  the  Son  is  an  inter¬ 
nal,  and  therefore  an  eternal,  act  of  God.  The  Arian  formula 
“there  was  [a  time]  when  He  was  not,”  is  false.  Secondly,  the 

1  Constantine’s  Letter  is  given  in  full  in  Eusebius,  Vita  Const.  II.  64-72, 
and  fragments  of  it  in  Socrates,  H.E.  I.  7. 

2  The  two  principal  authorities  respecting  the  doings  of  the  Council  are 
Eusebius  of  Caesarea,  Vita  Const.  III.  6  sq.,  Epist.  (in  Theodoret  H.E.  I.  11), 
and  Athanasius,  De  Decrett.  Syn.Nic .,  and  Epist.  ad  Afros.  Neither  pf  these 
witnesses  is  without  a  bias.  For  a  full  statement  of  the  sources,  see  Hefele, 
Counciliengesch.  I.  b.  ii.  c.  2,  and  Gass’s  Art.  Nicaenisch.  Koncil  ( Real-Encyl. 
X.  p.  530). 

3  For  a  highly  interesting  description  of  the  Council,  see  Stanley’s  Hist,  of 
the  Eastern  Church ,  Lect.  1 1. -VII. 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


137 


Son  is  not  “  from  the  non-existent,”  but  from  the  essence  of  the 
Father;  and  thirdly,  He  is  of  the  same  substance  —  homoousios 
with  the  Father.  God  is  the  Father.  Fatherhood  is  essential  to 
His  being,  —  as  truly  so  as  omniscience  or  omnipotence.  But  were 
it  not  for  the  Son,  He  would  not  be  the  Father.  God  the  Father 
could  not  be  that  which  He  is  without  the  Son,  just  as  the  Son 
could  not  be  that  which  He  is,  without  the  Father.  He  is  God’s 
son  by  nature,  and  not  by  an  act  of  will.1  It  is  the  idea  of  Atha¬ 
nasius  that  one  and  the  same  essence  belongs  to  the  Father  and 
the  Son.  This  identity  or  numerical  sameness  is  set  forth  through 
the  illustrations  of  the  sun  and  its  radiance,  the  same  light  being 
in  both,  and  of  the  river  and  the  fountain,  the  same  water  being 
in  both.  There  are  direct  statements,  positive  and  negative,  of 
the  same  purport.2  As  to  the  meaning  of  generation,  the  expla- 

1  See,  e.g.,  Oratt'.  C.  Ar.  III.  60-64. 

2  See  De  Decrett.  Nic.  20,  Expos.  Fidei ,  1.  Or  C.  Ar.  IV.  1.  In  this  last 
passage  it  is  said  that  while  the  Father  and  the  Son  are  two,  the  Monas  of  the 
Deity  (deor^Tos)  is  indivisible  and  inseparable  ( adialperov  ral  dcrx^rov),  and 
more  to  the  same  effect.  In  C.  Ar.  III.  3,  the  identity  ( ravrbTrjTa )  of  the 
Deity  (deoTrjTos)  and  the  oneness  of  the  essence  (ivoTrjTa  rr,s  ovalas')  are 
distinctly  asserted.  The  term  ovaia  (essence),  in  Aristotle,  signified,  first,  a 
thing  in  the  concrete,  which  is  a  subject  and  cannot  be  a  predicate,  an  indi¬ 
vidual  object,  the  supporter  of  attributes;  and,  secondly,  a  class,  be  it  a  species 
or  a  larger  class,  a  genus.  (Arist.  Categ.  5,  p.  2a,  Metaphysic.,  6,  1 1,  p.  1037.) 
This  double  capacity  of  the  word  to  signify  either  physical  or  logical  unity 
made  the  Homoousion  a  convenient  term  for  the  Athanasians  to  apply  to  the 
unity  and  plurality  of  the  godhead,  as  the  Latins  from  the  same  motive  em¬ 
ployed  the  word  ‘  consubstantial.’  (See  Hampden,  The  Scholastic  Philosophy, 
etc.,  p.  126  sq.)  The  Sabellians  held  to  a  merely  logical  (or  nominal)  unity; 
the  Arians,  to  a  merely  physical  unity;  the  orthodox,  to  both.  The  distinc¬ 
tion  of  Father  and  Son  is  one  of  essential  relations.  The  entire  Deity  is  in 
each.  The  divine  attributes,  such  as  wisdom  and  power,  are  not  to  be  spoken 
of  as  plural.  The  whole  Deity  was  “transfused  from  the  Father  to  the  Son.” 
In  one  place  {Expos.  Fidei,  2)  Athanasius  distinguishes  Homoovedvon  from 
Afonoonsion;  but  this  is  to  exclude  the  Sabellian  idea  of  the  personal  oneness 
of  the  divine  being,  the  exclusive  physical  unity,  without  the  logical  (Hamp¬ 
den,  Ibid.  p.  127).  Aquinas  insists  on  the  importance  of  guarding  against 
the  notion  of  the  singularity  of  the  divine  being.  In  another  passage  (De 
Synodis,  51,  53)  men  are  said  by  Athanasius  to  be  coessential.  Here  the 
point  on  which  he  is  insisting  is  the  complete,  and  not  merely  generic,  likeness 
of  the  Son  to  the  Father.  The  context  (51,  52)  emphasizes  the  point  that  the 
Father  and  the  Son  are  not  divisible,  as  the  analogies  adduced  might  be 
thought  to  imply.  It  is  evident  from  the  course  of  the  Arian  controversy  that 
the  term  ‘  Homoousion  ’  did  not  always  avail,  of  itself,  to  exclude  the  merely 


1 38 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


nations  of  Athanasius  are  mostly  negative.  One  aim  is  to  shut 
out  materialistic  associations  of  the  term.  In  its  own  nature,  it  is 
inscrutable.  The  standing  figure  to  represent  the  relation  of  the 
Son  to  the  Father  is  the  radiance  of  a  luminous  body  —  which 
would  not  be  a  luminous  body  if  it  did  not  shine. 

When  it  came  to  the  shaping  of  the  creed,  neither  of  the  parties 
comprised  at  the  outset  more  than  a  minor  portion  of  the  mem¬ 
bers  of  the  Council.  There  was  a  great  middle  party,  constituting 
a  majority,  who  were  far  from  being  agreed  among  themselves  on 
the  questions  in  debate,  but  were  united  in  opposing  the  introduc¬ 
tion  of  new  terminology.  They  wanted  to  frame  a  statement  of 
belief  that  would  satisfy  all,  and  thus  pacify  the  disputants.  They 
were  generally  opposed  to  the  Homoousion,  —  a  part  from  fear  of 
a  Sabellian  interpretation,  and  another  part  because  they  were 
Arians  from  conviction.  The  middle  party  found  a  representa¬ 
tive  in  Eusebius  of  Caesarea,  whom  the  Emperor  regarded  with 
special  honor.  He  brought  forward  the  programme  of  a  creed 
which  was  identical  with  that  of  his  own  Church  of  Caesarea.  In 

generic  likeness  of  Arians,  or  its  antipode,  the  singularity  or  solitude  of  the 
Sabellians.  The  safeguard  was  contained  in  the  idea  of ‘generation’  and  in  the 
e/c  T7)s  ovcrias.  The  safeguard  was  the  idea  oLthe  co-inherence  of  the  divine 
persons  (John  xiv.  11),  called  by  the  Greeks  Trepixupyais  and  by  the  Latins 
circumincessio  (see  Ath.  C.  Ar.  III.  22,  §  3  sq.).  Athanasius  would  not  quar¬ 
rel  with  those  who  would  shun  the  word  ‘  Homoousion/  but  held  to  the  absolute 
likeness  of  the  Son  to  the  Father,  and  the  co-inherence.  ( Tom .  ad  Antioch. 
6,  8.)  In  truth,  he  had.  no  special  fondness  for  that  word  and  seldom  uses  it. 

Instructive  remarks  on  the  history  of  the  word  bgoovaios,  on  the  influence  of 
Rome  and  the  East  in  reference  to  it,  and  on  its  probable  relation  to  the 
“unius  substantiae”  of  Tertullian  (through  Hosius),  are  made  in  a  note  of 
Harnack  (DG.  II.  pp.  228-231).  See,  also,  the  references  in  this  note  to 
other  passages  in  Harnack’s  DG.  and  to  a  passage  in  Bigg,  The  Christian 
Platonists  (p.  164  sq.).  The  explanation  of  terms  in  Hampden,  Lect.  III., 
with  the  Notes  in  the  Appendix,  is  valuable. 

That  Athanasius  teaches  a  numerical  unity  is  at  present  the  prevailing 
opinion  of  scholars.  See  Niedner,  Kirchengesch.  p.  355;  Thomasius,  DG. 
228  sq.;  Zahn,  Marcellus  von  Ancyra ,  p.  20;  Harnack,  I.  212  sq.  Petavius 
maintained  the  opposite  interpretation.  He  is  supported  by  Cudworth,  The 
True  Intellectual  Systetn  of  the  Universe  (London  ed.  1845),  Vol.  II.  431  sq. 
The  same  ground  is  taken  as  to  the  sense  of  the  Nicene  Creed  (with  differ¬ 
ences,  however,  as  to  the  particular  conception  of  Athanasius),  by  Munscher 
(in  Henke’s  Neues  Magazin ,  Vol.  VI.  and  in  his  DG.  I.  §  74,  p.  234  sq.);  by 
Meier,  Gsch.  d.  Trinitats  Lehre ,  I.  p.  157;  by  Gieseler,  DG.  pp.  309,  310; 
and  in  an  article  in  The  New  World  (Dec.  1894)  by  L.  L.  Paine. 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


139 


it  Christ  was  styled,  “the  Word  of  [or  from]  God,”  “God  of  God, 
Light  of  Light,  Life  of  Life,”  “  begotten  of  the  Father  before  all 
the  ages.”  Eusebius  relates  that  his  proposal  was  well  received, 
but  that  Constantine  —  who  no  doubt  followed  the  suggestions  of 
Hosius  and  the  other  Homoousion  bishops  —  recommended  cer¬ 
tain  amendments.  These  were  adopted.  They  gave  a  decisively 
anti-Arian  character  to  the  creed.  The  Son  was  declared  to  be 
“from  the  substance  of  the  Father,”  “begotten,  not  made,”  “con- 
substantial  (Homoousion)  with  the  Father.”  Anathemas  were 
appended  against  those  who  professed  the  distinctive  Arian  for¬ 
mulas,  “  once  He  was  not,”  etc.,  or  held  that  He  is  of  (or  from) 
another  substance  —  “Usia  or  Hypostasis,”  the  terms  being  used 
as  synonymous  —  than  that  of  the  Father.  Eusebius,  not  without 
delay  and  with  reluctance,  accepted  the  creed  as  thus  amended. 
In  his  letter  to  his  church,1  he  explained  his  action  by  minimizing 
the  significance  of  the  terms  to  which  he  had  at  first  objected. 
He  had  no  better  reason  to  give  for  assenting  to  the  anathemas 
than  that  the  phrases  proscribed  were  not  in  Scripture  and  engen¬ 
dered  controversy.  His  real  opinion  was  that  the  Son  is  a  second 
substance  and  owed  His  being  to  the  Father’s  creative  will.  But 
he  was  sincere,  if  not  logical,  in  shrinking  from  the  conclusions 
which  the  Arians  drew  from  the  same  premises.  Arius,  with  the 
Egyptian  bishops  who  stood  with  him,  were  banished.  Later, 
Eusebius  of  Nicomedia  and  Theognis  of  Nicsea,  who  refused  to 
break  off  communion  with  Arius,  were  likewise  banished. 

The  Nicene  Creed  was  carried  in  the  Council  by  the  pressure 
of  imperial  influence,  against  the  judgment  and  inclinations  of  the 
major  part  of  the  body.  Such  an  act  could  not  terminate  the 
battle.  The  defeated  middle  party,  who  acquired  the  name  of 
Homoeousians,  or  Eusebians  (from  Eusebius  of  Nicomedia),  con¬ 
tinued  to  assert  that  the  true  predicate  to  be  attached  to  the  pre¬ 
existent  Son  is  that  of  likeness  to  the  Father.  The  Homoeousians 
charged  their  opponents  with  Sabellianism  ;  these  in  turn  accused 
the  Homoeousians  of  tritheism. 

It  only  needed  a  change  of  mind  in  Constantine,  which  was 
prompted  indirectly  by  his  sister,  to  move  him  to  recall  the  ban¬ 
ished  bishops  and  to  decree  the  restoration  of  Arius  to  his  office. 
Athanasius,  who  succeeded  Alexander  as  bishop  in  326,  interposed 
resistance.  The  prejudice  of  Constantine  against  him,  which  was 

1  This  letter,  with  his  proposed  creed,  is  inTheodoret,  1.  12. 


140 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


fomented  by  false  accusations  of  a  political  nature,  was  removed 
for  a  time,  but  only  for  a  time,  by  a  personal  interview  (332).1 
Being  deposed  by  a  Synod  at  Tyre  (335),  he  was  banished  by  the 
Emperor  to  Treves.  In  the  same  year  Arius,  who  was  then  eighty 
years  old,  having  presented  to  Constantine  a  creed,  couched  in 
Scriptural  language,  was  to  be  solemnly  received  back  into  the 
Church ;  but  on  the  evening  before  the  day  appointed  for  the 
ceremony,  he  suddenly  died. 

In  337  Constantine  himself  died.  Constantius  procured  the 
return  of  Athanasius  to  his  flock.  But  the  new  Emperor,  swayed 
by  the  Eunuchs,  the  chamberlains  at  Court,  took  the  side  of  the 
Eusebians.  Athanasius  was  at  once  involved  in  new  contests  with 
his  opponents.  He  was  deposed  by  the  Eusebians  at  a  Synod  at 
Antioch  in  341,  and  Gregory,  a  rough  Cappadocian,  was  put  in  his 
place.  The  Emperor  being  hostile,  Athanasius,  although  warmly 
supported  by  the  greater  portion  of  his  people,  was  obliged  to 
take  refuge  in  the  West,  where  Constans  was  an  adherent  of  the 
Nicene  confession.  The  Roman  bishop,  Julius,  was  of  the  same 
mind,  invited  the  exile  to  Rome,  and  with  a  Synod  which  met 
there  in  342,  gave  judgment  in  his  favor.  The  East  and  the  West 
were  now  arrayed  against  each  other.  Anxious  to  avoid  a  rupture 
between  them,  the  Orientals,  at  another  Antioch  Council,  issued, 
one  after  the  other,  a  series  of  symbols.2  These  fell  in  with  the 
Nicene  definitions,  with  two  vital  exceptions  :  they  asserted  the 
homoeousion  and  the  generation  of  the  Son  by  an  act  of  the  Father’s 
will. 

The  cause  of  Athanasius  was  weakened  by  the  approach  to 
Sabellianism  of  a  friend,  Marcellus  of  Ancyra,  and  by  the  more 
radical  departure  in  this  direction  of  Photinus  of  Sirmium.  Mar¬ 
cellus,3  who  had  been  a  determined  adversary  of  Arianism  at 
Nicsea,  was  anxious  to  dispose  of  the  Arian  objections,  while  hold¬ 
ing  fast  to  the  Homoousion.  Accordingly  he  brought  forward  the 
opinion  that  the  Logos  is  immanent  and  therefore  eternal  in  God, 

1  Of  this  interview  Gibbon,  who  shows  a  genuine  admiration  of  the  charac¬ 
ter  of  Athanasius,  says :  “  The  haughty  spirit  of  the  Emperor  was  awed  by  the 
courage  and  eloquence  of  a  bishop  who  implored  his  justice  and  awakened 
his  conscience.”  Decline  and  Fall ,  Vol.  III.  c.  xxi. 

2  Hahn,  Biblioth.  d.  Symb.,  pp.  103-105. 

3  The  best  exposition  of  the  doctrine  of  Marcellus  is  by  Zahn,  Marcellus 
of  Ancyra  (1867). 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


141 

but  not  begotten  and  not  personal.  The  divine  Energy 1  so  named 
comes  forth  from  the  Father  to  accomplish  the  work  of  creation 
and  redemption.  Only  at  the  incarnation  did  the  Logos  become 
personal.  The  incarnation  was  a  union  with  an  impersonal  human 
nature.2  It  is  only  the  incarnate  Logos  who  in  Scripture  is  called 
the  Son  of  God,  and  when  the  Saviour’s  work  ends,  the  Logos 
returns  to  its  premundane  relation  to  the  Father.  A  like  doctrine 
was  held  respecting  the  Spirit ;  both  the  Logos  and  the  Spirit 
being,  in  the  sense  defined,  consubstantial  with  the  Father.  It 
is  not  explained  what  becomes  of  the  body  of  Christ  when  the 
work  of  redemption  is  finished.  Photinus  regarded  Christ  as  a 
man,  the  Son  of  Mary,  conceived  of  the  Holy  Ghost  and  under 
the  influence  of  the  divine  Logos,  his  idea  being  that  the  Logos, 
as  was  held  by  Marcellus,  was  an  impersonal  power  of  God.  In 
336,  in  a  Synod  at  Constantinople,  Marcellus  was  condemned  by 
the  Orientals,  and  Eusebius  of  Caesarea  was  charged  with  the  task 
of  preparing  a  confutation  of  his  opinions.  But  Athanasius  and 
Julius  of  Rome  persisted  in  recognizing  him  as  within  the  pale  of 
orthodoxy.  Athanasius  at  a  later  day  controverted  his  doctrine, 
but  avoided  any  attack  upon  him  personally.3 

The  Antiochian  Synods  (341-345),  of  which  mention  has  been 
made,  having  failed  to  bridge  the  chasm  between  the  East  and 
the  West,  the  Western  Emperor,  Constans,  prompted  by  Julius, 
the  Roman  Bishop,  persuaded  his  brother  Constantius  to  call  a 
general  Synod.  In  347  this  was  ready  to  assemble,  but  the  two 
sections  of  the  Church  were  deterred  by  mutual  suspicion  from 
meeting  in  one  body.  The  Orientals  demanded  in  vain  a  recog¬ 
nition  of  the  deposition  of  Athanasius  and  Marcellus.  Accord¬ 
ingly  the  Occidentals  met  at  Sardica  and  the  Orientals  in  a  much 
smaller  number  at  Philippopolis  in  Thrace.  The  latter  planted 
themselves  on  the  fourth  Antiochian  symbol.4  The  former  de¬ 
clared  for  Nicaea  and  Rome.  Julius  prevailed  on  Constans  to 

1  iv^pyeia  dpacrTucitj. 

2  Zahn,  p.  164:  “Aber  diese  impersonliche  Menschennatur  ist  nicht  ein 
todtes  Werkzeug,  sondern  Selbstdarstellung  des  Logos.” 

3  It  is  of  the  doctrine  of  Marcellus  that  Athanasius  writes  in  C.  Ar.  Oratt. 
iv.  4-24.  This  passage  is  discussed  by  Zahn,  p.  198  sq.  It  had  been  consid¬ 
ered  in  its  relation  to  Marcellus  by  two  German  writers,  Rettberg  and  Kuhn; 
also  by  J.  H.  Newman,  Ath.  Treatises,  pp.  497-5 11.  Cf.  Gwatkin,  p.  82. 

4  Hahn,  p.  407.  The  documents  framed  by  the  two  Synods  are  fully  dis¬ 
cussed  by  Hefele,  Vol.  II.  B.  IV. 


142 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


procure  from  his  brother,  who  for  political  reasons  did  not  wish 
to  offend  him,  the  return  of  Athanasius  to  Alexandria  (346)  ;  but 
the  death  of  Constans,  in  350,  exposed  the  resolute  bishop  once 
more  to  the  intrigues  of  his  enemies.  In  the  proceedings  relat¬ 
ing  to  Marcellus  and  Photinus,  an  occasion  was  found  for  all  the 
Anti-Niceans  to  combine.  Photinus  was  anathematized  by  the 
Antiochian  Synod  of  Eusebius  in  344.  He  was  condemned  after¬ 
wards  in  a  series  of  synods  held  by  the  Eusebians  and  by  the 
orthodox.  At  the  first  Sirmian  Synod  (351)  a  creed,  the  first  of 
a  series  of  four,  framed  at  the  same  place,  was  adopted.1  The 
Sirmian  creeds  rejected  Arian  formulas,  but  avoided  the  strict 
definitions  of  Nicaea.  A  great  effort  was  made  to  move  Rome 
and  the  West  to  abandon  the  support  of  Athanasius.  Constan- 
tius,  after  he  conquered  Magnentius  in  353,  was  sole  Emperor 
until  his  death  in  361.  By  cunning  management  and  by  force  he 
succeeded  in  bringing  the  Western  bishops  into  ecclesiastical 
fellowship  with  the  Eusebians,  through  the  Synods  of  Arles  and  of 
Milan  (355).  There  were  a  few  of  the  bishops  at  Milan  who 
could  not  be  deluded  or  coerced,  and  these  were  sent  into  banish¬ 
ment.  Athanasius,  thus  condemned,  found  a  refuge  with  faithful 
monks  in  Egypt. 

In  this  way  the  Anti-Nicene  party  for  the  time  was  everywhere 
triumphant.  Its  success  was  the  signal  for  its  disruption.  Relieved 
from  external  pressure,  the  union  of  its  really  discordant  parts  was 
broken  up.  Two  of  the  Anti-Nicene  leaders,  yRtius  of  Antioch 
and  Eunomius  of  Cyzicus  in  Mysia,  denied  the  Homoeousion ; 
that  is,  asserted  that  the  Son  is  not  like  God.  There  sprung  up 
thus  the  new  faction  of  Anomceans.  And  the  Eusebians,  who 
opposed  them,  were  further  divided  among  themselves.  The 
“  Homoeans  ”  would  not  go  a  step  beyond  the  affirmation  of  a 
“likeness,”  —  meaning  a  likeness  in  will  and  active  energy.  The 
bishops  at  the  Court  were  eager  to  stave  off  an  open  rupture  in 
the  Eusebian  ranks.  Their  prescription  was  to  abjure  the  use  of 
the  unbiblical  word  usia,  the  centre  of  the  contention.  In  the 
second  Sirmian  creed  (357),  the  members  of  which  were  Western 
bishops,  it  was  declared  that  no  more  mention  should  be  made 
of  either  ‘  Homoousion  ’  or  ‘  Homoeousion.’  The  spirit  of  the 
connected  statements  was  decidedly  Arian.  A  Synod  of  conserva¬ 
tive  Semi-Arians  at  Ancyra  in  358  issued  a  Letter  affirming  that 

1  For  the  first  two,  see  Hahn,  p.  115  sq. 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


143 


the  term  (  Father  ’  implies  in  itself  the  Son’s  likeness  in  substance. 
In  a  third  Sirmian  Creed,  several  symbols  were  put  together  — 
one  of  which  was  one  of  the  Antiochian  Creeds  of  341.  The  term 
1  Homoousion  ’  was  avoided.  Liberius,  the  Roman  bishop,  was 
induced  to  agree  to  this  attempt  at  compromise.  A  fourth  symbol 1 
was  composed  at  Sirmium,  in  which  the  Son  was  pronounced  to 
be  like  the  Father,  “  according  to  the  Scriptures,”  —  an  ambigu¬ 
ous  phrase.  The  Easterns  were  assembled  in  a  Council  at  Seleu- 
cia  and  the  Westerns  at  Rimini,  by  the  dictatorial  Constantius. 
The  last  Sirmian  formulary  was  modified  by  dropping  the  phrase 
“  according  to  the  Scriptures.” 2  The  use  of  the  words  ‘  Homoou¬ 
sion  ’  and  ‘  Homceousian  ’  was  renounced,  and  the  Anomoeans 
anathematized.  On  the  accession  of  Julian,  Athanasius  returned 
to  his  diocese  (362).  One  more  banishment  he  had  to  endure 
under  Valens,  whose  wife  was  an  Arian ;  but  Valens  was  per¬ 
suaded  by  Valentinian  to  desist  from  persecution.  This  removed  an 
obstacle  to  the  progress  of  the  Nicene  theology.  Athanasius,  in 
his  latter  days,  fell  in  with  efforts  to  unite  all  the  anti-Arians.  The 
spirit  of  conciliation  characterized  a  Council  at  Alexandria  assem¬ 
bled  in  362.  He  did  not  repulse  advocates  of  the  Homoeousion 
who  held  to  the  likeness  of  the  Son  to  the  Father  in  all  respects. 
There  arose  a  class  of  moderate  Nicseans,  of  whom  Meletius  of 
Antioch  was  one,  who  incurred  the  displeasure  of  both  extreme 
parties.  A  “ Younger  Nicaean  Party”  appeared,  counting  in  it 
leaders  who  “  were  heirs”  —  through  Eusebius  and  his  influence 
—  of  a  Homoeousion  tradition,  but  “owed  to  Athanasius  and  the 
Nicene  Creed  a  more  perfect  interpretation  of  their  unaltered 
belief.”  They  were  disciples  of  the  Origenist  School.  They  did 
much  to  secure  the  prevalence  of  the  Nicene  doctrine.  The 
principal  chiefs  were  the  three  eminent  Cappadocian  bishops, 
Basil,  Gregory  of  Nazianzum,  and  Gregory  of  Nyssa.  But  their 
teaching  in  reality  modified  the  aspect  of  the  Nicene  formulas. 
The  term  ‘  hypostasis,’  instead  of  being  a  synonym  of  usia ,  was  used 
to  designate  a  person  or  personal  subject,  in  distinction  from  sub¬ 
stance.  This  use  of  the  term  became  current  in  the  East.  Per¬ 
sonal  distinctions  in  the  Trinity  were  emphasized.  The  relation  of 
the  persons  in  the  godhead  was  compared  by  the  Gregories  to  the 
relation  of  three  men  to  their  common  humanity.  In  the  case  of 

1  See  Hahn,  p.  124. 

2  For  the  Seleucian  Symbol,  see  Hahn.  p.  127. 


144 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


Gregory  of  Nyssa,  beneath  this  representation  there  was  the  Platonic 
or  realistic  idea  of  the  unity  of  human  nature.  It  is  by  an  abuse 
of  language,  he  tells  us,  that  three  human  persons  are  called  three 
men,  since  as  respects  humanity  —  essentially — they  are  one. 
Inasmuch  as  the  person  1  of  the  Father  is  one,  “  from  whom  the 
Son  is  generated  and  the  Holy  Spirit  proceeds,  for  this  reason, 
properly  speaking,2  we  say  that  He  who  is  the  one  ground  or 
cause 3  of  the  effects 4  —  i.e.,  the  Son  and  the  Spirit  —  is  one  God.5 
But  in  interpreting  Gregory,  it  must  be  kept  in  mind  that  there  is 
in  his  conception  a  genetic  relation  among  the  persons  and  a 
mutual  ‘  inhabitation,’ 6  so  that  neither  is  conceivable,  neither  is 
complete,  without  the  others.  In  this  sense  they  are  together  the 
One  God.  They  constitute  an  inseparable  unity.  Hence  they 
are  not  with  strict  propriety  to  be  called  thi'ee.  They  are  sepa¬ 
rated  neither  in  time,  nor  place,  nor  will,  nor  work.7  Gregory’s 
illustration  is  the  rainbow.  In  both  the  sunlight  and  in  the  rain¬ 
bow,  the  light  is  one.  The  colors  of  the  bow  remain  in  unity,  and 
although  distinguishable,  pass  over  inperceptibly  into  one  an¬ 
other.  Yet  by  the  later  Nicseans  the  mystery  was  made  to  lie  in 
the  unity  of  God  rather  than  in  the  trinity.  And  the  unity,  as  we 
see,  was  secured  by  a  subordinationism  carried  further  than  it  was 
carried  by  Athanasius.  Meletius  was  recognized  as  the  Bishop  of 
Antioch  by  the  younger  Nicaeans,  but  was  not  acknowledged  as 
such  at  Rome  and  in  the  West. 

New  contention  arose  on  the  subject  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  Arius 
had  held  that  the  Holy  Spirit  is  the  first  created  nature  produced 
by  the  Son.  Athanasius  and  the  Alexandrian  Synod  of  362  had 
predicated  the  Homoousion  of  the  Spirit.  The  Nicene  Creed 
contained  on  the  subject  a  single  indefinite  sentence.  In  380, 
Gregory  of  Nazianzum  writes  that  concerning  the  rank  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  and  His  relation  to  God  there  is  among  theologians 
a  great  diversity  of  opinion,  some  professing  not  to  know  what  to 
think  on  the  matter,  the  Scriptures  not  having  clearly  explained 

1  TTpSaojirov.  4  alnar lov. 

2  Kvpius.  5  5E K  T U)V  KOlvCjV  iwOLUJV,  T.  II.  p.  85. 

3  a’inov.  6  7T6ptxwp7/crts. 

7  See  Dorner,  Person  Christi,  II.  pp.  919,  920,  where  the  passages  from 
Gregory  are  given.  Bishop  Bull  cites  a  passage  from  Petavius  (Lib.  IV.  c. 
16),  where  he  admits  that  numerical  unity  may  be  inferred  from  ‘inhabita¬ 
tion.’  Bull,  Defens.  Fid.  Me.,  Lib.  IV.  §  4.  Cf.  Waterland,  Works  (Oxford 
ed.  1833),  Vol.  II*  P-  211. 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


145 


this  point.1  Hilary  of  Poictiers  agreed  with  this  last  statement, 
yet  said  that  nothing  could  be  foreign  to  God’s  essence  which 
searches  the  deep  things  of  God.2  When  Macedonius,  Bishop  of 
Constantinople,  pronounced  the  Holy  Ghost  to  be  a  creature 
subordinate  to  the  Son,  his  opinion  was  generally  considered 
heretical,  and  his  followers,  the  Macedonians,  were  given  the 
nickname  of  “  Pneumatomachians.”  Under  the  auspices  of 
Theodosius  the  Great,  the  finishing  stroke  was  given  in  estab¬ 
lishing  the  predominance  of  the  Nicene  Orthodoxy.  Prominent 
bishops  who  rejected  it  were  deposed.  At  Constantinople,  Gregory 
of  Nazianzum  was  put  in  the  place  of  Demophilus.  In  381,  the 
Emperor  assembled  the  General  Council  of  Constantinople.  It  is 
a  significant  fact  that  Meletius  was  met  by  him  with  a  cordial 
greeting  and  appointed  to  preside  over  the  Council.  It  consisted 
of  about  one  hundred  and  fifty  bishops,  all  Oriental.  This  body 
declared  its  approval  of  the  Nicene  Creed.  It  issued,  also,  an 
exposition  of  the  Trinity,  but  of  its  contents  we  have  no  definite 
knowledge.  What  is  called  the  Creed  of  Constantinople,  however, 
did  not  emanate  from  the  Council.3  The  foundation  of  the  Creed 
so  called  was  a  confession  composed  by  Cyril  of  Jerusalem,  prior 
to  his  being  made  bishop,  which  was  in  350.  In  the  existing  form 
of  the  Creed,  it  is  almost  identical  with  a  baptismal  symbol 
recommended  by  Epiphanius  as  early  as  374.  It  is  probable  that 
Cyril  himself  had  enlarged  this  symbol  for  the  benefit  of  his  people 
by  introducing  the  passages  from  the  Nicene  Creed  which  formed 
a  part  of  it.  A  like  enrichment  of  baptismal  confessions  took 
place  in  other  churches,  the  object  being  to  shut  out  errors  which 
there  was  special  reason  to  guard  against,  while  at  the  same  time 
their  popular  character  should  be  preserved.  Thus  the  Nicene 
anathemas  were  left  out  —  although  they  are  retained  in  the  Creed 
of  Epiphanius.  The  additions  relating  to  the  Holy  Ghost  were 
added,  the  phraseology  being  scriptural  and  thus  consonant  with 
the  popular  character  of  the  Jerusalem  Confession.4  The  East 

1  Orat.  31,  5.  2  De  Trinit.  L.  XII.  c.  55. 

3  As  to  the  origin  of  the  Constantinopolitan  Creed,  see  the  thorough  discus¬ 
sion  of  Hort,  Two  Dissertations ,  etc.  (1876),  Diss.  II.  See  also  the  article 
of  Harnack  in  the  Real-Encycl.  (Vol.  VIII.  pp.  212-230). 

4  “  In  der  That  is  das  sog.  C.  Panum  nichts  anders  als  das  neu  redigirte, 
mit  den  wichtigsten  nicaenischen  Formeln  und  mit  einer  regula  Jidei  betreffs 
des  hi.  Geistes  ausgestattete  Taufbekenntniss  der  jerusalemischen  Kirche.” 
Harnack,  Real-Encycl.  VIII.  222. 


146 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


and  the  West  were  not  immediately  brought  into  harmony,  owing 
to  the  modified  spirit  of  the  younger  Nicaeans.  When  Meletius  of 
Antioch  died,  his  supporters  refused  to  acknowledge  the  rival 
bishop,  Paulinus,  who  was  a  Nicsean  of  the  stricter  cast.  But  after 
451,  the  Council  of  Constantinople  obtained,  alike  in  the  West  and 
East,  recognition  as  an  CEcumenical  Council.  By  some  means 
Cyril’s  Confession,  the  baptismal  symbol  of  the  Church  at  Jeru¬ 
salem,  came  to  be  regarded  as  its  product.  Just  how 
this  came  to  be  can  only  be  conjecturally  explained.  The 
Constantinopolitan  Creed  omits  these  words  of  the  Nicene  sym¬ 
bol  :  “  that  is,  from  the  substance  of  the  Father.”  In  their  place 
stand  the  words :  “  begotten  of  the  Father  before  all  ages.” 
The  words  “  God  of  God  ”  are  also  omitted.  These  are  the 
principal  variations  from  the  Nicene  text.  They  did  not  spring 
from  differences  of  belief.  A  striking  peculiarity  of  the  Con¬ 
stantinopolitan  has  been  stated,  —  namely,  the  addition  of  the 
clauses  respecting  the  Holy  Spirit,  whose  attributes  are  set  forth  in 
words  of  Scripture.  It  is  declared  that  the  Spirit  together  with  the 
Father  and  the  Son  is  to  be  worshipped  and  glorified.  In  Churches 
of  the  West,  the  Creed  which  acquired  the  name  of  Constantino¬ 
politan  is  usually  styled  the  Nicene.  In  the  Anglican  Prayer 
Book,  apparently  through  a  mistake  of  its  compilers,  the  epithet 
“  holy,”  in  one  of  the  four  notes  of  the  Church,  is  omitted.  The 
addition  of  “  filioque  ”  to  the  Western  form  of  the  Creed  will  soon 
be  referred  to. 

In  the  Nicene  and  Constantinopolitan  Creeds,  there  stands 
first  the  confession  of  one  God,  the  Father  Almighty,  the  Maker 
of  all  things.  There  is  a  paraphrase  of  the  language  of  the  Apostle 
Paul  (1  Cor.  viii.  5)  where  he  defines  the  Christian  faith,  in  con¬ 
trast  with  the  belief  of  the  heathen  “  in  gods  many  and  lords  many.” 
While  the  Eastern  theology  likewise  insisted  on  the  consubstantiality 
of  the  Son,  there  was  always  recognized  the  subordination  of  the 
second  and  third  persons.  In  the  Deity  the  Father  is  the  begin¬ 
ning  ;  it  is  to  Him  that  primal  causality  belongs.  From  the  outset 
the  West  clung  to  the  unity  of  substance,  fastening  attention  on  this 
cardinal  element  in  the  doctrine.  It  was  through  Augustine  that 
in  the  West  subordinationism  was  eliminated  from  the  Trinitarian 
conception.  Functions  and  acts,  like  the  theophanies  in  the  Old 
Testament,  which  had  been  ascribed  to  the  Son,  were  attributed 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


147 


by  Augustine  to  the  whole  Trinity.1  By  him  the  numerical  unity 
of  the  persons  in  respect  of  substance  was  unequivocally  taught.  It 
was  in  pursuance  of  this  movement  of  thought  that  on  the  conver¬ 
sion  of  Recared,  King  of  Spain  and  Gaul,  at  the  third  Council  of 
Toledo  (589),  “  filioque  ”  was  inserted  in  the  Creed;  whereby 
an  immanent  procession  of  the  Spirit  from  the  Son,  as  well  as 
from  the  Father,  was  affirmed.2  In  the  symbol  quicunque , 
or  the  so-called  Athanasian  Creed,  which  was  probably  composed 
in  Southern  Gaul,  not  earlier  than  the  closing  part  of  the  fifth 
century,  and  came  into  use  in  the  age  of  Charlemagne,  the  process, 
if  one  may  so  say,  of  equalizing  the  persons  is  seen  at  the  climax. 
The  attributes  of  Deity  are,  one  by  one,  affirmed  of  the  three 
persons  severally,  and  with  each  affirmation  is  connected  the 
proposition  that  there  are  not  three,  but  one,  “  eternal,”  “  omni¬ 
present,”  etc.  It  is  only  the  epithets  “  ingenerate,”  “  generated 
by  the  Father,”  and  “  proceeding,”  that  are  connected  respectively 
and  exclusively  with  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Spirit. 

1  De  Trinitate,  L.  II.  9-18.  He  says  of  the  mission  of  the  Son,  of  the 
Incarnation,  and  the  birth  from  the  Virgin,  that  they  were  wrought  by  the 
Trinity.  “  Una  eademque  operatione  Patris  et  Filii  inseperabiliter  esse  fac- 
tam,  non  utique  inde  separato  Spiritu  Sancto.”  (§  9.) 

2  Mansi,  IX.  597  sq.;  Harduin,  III.  467  sq.  See  Hahn,  p.  158  sq. 


CHAPTER  IV 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  PERSON  OF  CHRIST 

TO  JOHN  OF  DAMASCUS 

Origen  had  brought  out  explicitly  the  doctrine  of  two  natures  in 
Christ.  He  is  the  divine  Logos,  He  is  likewise,  as  to  both  body 
and  soul,  man.  Origen  had  affirmed  with  emphasis  the  unity  of 
His  person.  He  had  said  that  the  divine  Wisdom  or  Logos  had 
emptied  himself,  had  submitted  to  a  curtailment  of  knowledge  — 
for  example,  respecting  the  time  when  the  advent  to  judgment 
would  occur.  At  the  same  time,  however,  he  had  said  that  the 
Logos  is  incapable  of  increase  or  diminution,  of  being  humbled  or 
exalted,  and  that  it  is  humanity  alone  in  Christ  that  suffers.  The 
transforming  power  of  the  Logos  in  its  effect  on  the  human  nature, 
especially  on  the  body  of  Christ,  is  carried  so  far  as  to  lend  a 
docetic  tinge  to  the  doctrinal  conception.1  The  problem  of  the 
mode  of  union  of  the  two  natures  still  called  for  a  solution.  It 
could  not  be  said  to  have  been  clearly  or  consistently  explained  by 
the  great  Alexandrian  teacher.  The  Arian  Controversy  gave  rise 
to  deeper  scrutiny  of  the  subject.  The  Arian  theory  was  that  of 
a  union  of  the  Logos  with  a  human  body.  To  the  Logos,  therefore, 
were  attributed  the  sensations  of  hunger  and  thirst,  the  limitation 
of  knowledge,  the  mental  anxiety,  which  in  the  Gospels  are  predi¬ 
cated  of  Christ.  When  the  Catholics  ascribed  these  experiences  to 
the  human  nature  of  Jesus,  the  Arians  charged  them  with  holding 
to  a  conflict  between  the  divine  and  human  will  in  Him,  to  a  divis¬ 
ion  of  Christ  into  two  persons.  The  task  was  imposed  on  the 
defenders  of  the  Nicene  theology  of  meeting  this  accusation. 

One  of  the  foremost  and  one  of  the  ablest  defenders  of  the 
Athanasian  doctrine  had  been  Apollinaris,  the  Younger,  Bishop  of 

1  Cont.  Cels.  III.  41.  The  mortal  body  and  the  human  soul  by  their  “  union 
and  intermixture”  (e^wcrei  /cat  avaKpaaei )  were  changed  into  God. 

148 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


149 


Laodicea.  In  the  middle  of  the  fourth  century  he  was  regarded 
as  one  of  the  pillars  of  orthodoxy.  He  was  versed  in  classical 
learning  and  he  was  an  acute  reasoner.  But  he  struck  out  a  path 
at  variance  with  the  accepted  doctrine  respecting  the  person  of 
Christ,  and  broached  a  theory  which  is  called  the  Apollinarian.1 
His  main  contention  was  that  in  Christ  the  divine  Logos  fills  the 
place  of  the  rational  soul  in  man.  To  the  spirit  or  rational  soul  in 
men  should  belong  of  right  supreme  control  over  the  animal  soul 
and  the  body,  the  two  other  departments  of  human  nature  accord¬ 
ing  to  the  Platonic  trichotomy.  But  by  reason  of  sin,  spirit  has 
lost  this  control  and  become  enslaved  to  the  lower  nature.  Hence 
the  need  of  the  incarnation  of  the  Logos.  Apollinaris  argued  that 
two  natures,  each  with  free  will,  could  not  subsist  together  in 
Christ ;  that  if  there  be  a  rational  spirit,  then  there  are  two  sons  of 
God  in  Him,  one  natural  and  the  other  adopted.2  Moreover,  the 
man,  the  adopted  Son,  would  not  be  without  error  and  sin ;  He 
would  be  mutable  as  the  Arians  alleged  that  He  was.  The 
Johannine  statement  that  “the  Logos  became  flesh”  is  to  be  liter¬ 
ally  taken.  The  second  man  is  “from  heaven”  (1  Cor.  xv.  47). 
He  is  in  fashion  “as  a  man”  (Phil.  ii.  7).  If,  as  Apollinaris 
argued,  Christ  is  to  be  conceived  of  as  a  man  with  the  self-direct¬ 
ing  power  of  reason,  then  he  is  only  a  man  inspired  of  God,3  he  is 
not  truly  divine  :  but  this  last  is  a  heresy. 

The  Apollinarian  doctrine  met  with  a  general  opposition.  It  is 
withstood  by  Athanasius  and  the  Cappadocian  theologians,  although 
the  treatise  against  Apollinaris  which  bears  the  name  of  Athanasius 
is  not  genuine.  Athanasius  distinguishes  between  actions  and  ex¬ 
periences  of  Christ  which  belong  to  him  as  God  from  such  as  per¬ 
tain  to  him  as  man.  The  necessity  that  He  should  be  truly  man 
is  inseparable  from  the  idea  of  redemption,  which  involves  the 
purification  of  human  nature  in  its  entirety.  Yet  the  phrase  “  two 
natures”  does  not  occur  in  Athanasius,  although  it  is  not  to  be 
inferred  that  he  took  pains  to  avoid  it.  He  speaks,  however,  of  a 
physical  unifying  of  the  divine  and  the  human.4  God  became  man 
that  man  might  be  made  God — might  be  divinized.5  He  does 

1  See  Draseke’s  elaborate  discussion,  Apollinaris  von  Laodicea,  etc.  (1892),  in 
Gebhardt  u.  Harnack’s  Texte  u.  Untersuchungen,  etc.  The  third  part  of  Dra¬ 
seke’s  discussion  presents  what  are  left  of  the  dogmatic  writings  of  Apollinaris. 

2  els  p.kv  (pvcrei  ...  els  SI  Biros.  4  'Ivonri s  (pvacK-fj. 

3  evdeos  dudpuxos.  5  E.g.,  De  Decrelis,  14;  Ad.  Adelph.  4. 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


150 

not  hesitate  to  speak  of  God  as  having  been  crucified,1  and  more 
than  once  styles  Mary  “  theotokos  ”  —  Mother  of  God.  So  all-con¬ 
trolling,  in  his  conception  of  the  subject,  is  the  divine  factor  in  the 
person  of  Christ.  The  Gregories  are  explicit  in  affirming  the  two 
natures.  Redemption  loses  its  essential  element  if  Christ  was  not 
possessed  of  a  rational  soul  like  that  of  other  men.  Christ,  says 
Gregory  of  Nazianzum,  is  not  one  and  another  in  the  personal 
sense  of  these  terms,  but  in  the  impersonal,  neuter  sense.2  The 
Gregories  say  in  words  that  the  natures  remain  unaltered.  Yet 
they  use  language  —  such  terms,  for  example,  as  ‘mixture’  and 
‘compound’3  —  which,  were  they  to  be  interpreted  strictly,  would 
contradict  that  proposition.  The  human  nature  is  divinized  by  its 
union  with  the  Logos.  It  is  “two  natures  flowing  together  into 
one.”4  Gregory  of  Nazianzum  says  that  in  Christ  the  Divine  is  to 
the  human  as  the  sun  among  the  stars,  which  if  not  obliterated  are 
yet  too  obscure  to  be  visible.  Gregory  of  Nyssa  says  that  the 
human  is  merged  in  the  sea  of  the  imperishable  Deity  as  a  drop  of 
vinegar  is  lost  in  the  ocean.5  Separate  in  itself  considered,  the 
flesh  when  “mixed  with  the  Divine”  no  longer  continues  in  its  own 
limitations  and  properties.0  The  full  consequences  of  the  Incarna¬ 
tion,  however,  do  not  ensue  until  the  glorification  of  Christ.  Then, 
according  to  Gregory  of  Nyssa,  the  body  of  Christ  loses  entirely  its 
human  attributes.  Then  the  human  nature  of  Christ  becomes 
ubiquitous.  These  theologians  expressed  the  general  sense  of  the 
Church  in  their  protest  against  the  curtailing  of  the  human 
attributes  of  Christ,  as  was  done  in  the  Apollinarian  theory  of  His 
person.  But  in  the  view  which  they  substitute  for  it,  the  human 
nature  of  Christ  is  taken  up  as  the  mere  organ  of  the  Logos,  as 
the  passive  object  of  a  divine,  transfiguring  agency.  The  Apol¬ 
linarian  doctrine  was  condemned,  without  any  mention  of  its 
author’s  name,  at  Alexandria  in  the  Synod  of  362.  It  was  con¬ 
demned  at  the  Council  of  Constantinople  in  381,  as  it  had  been 
at  Rome,  under  the  auspices  of  its  bishop,  Damasus,  in  377.  But 
there  were  Apollinarians  who  continued  in  a  covert  way  to  propa¬ 
gate  their  opinion,  and  some  of  their  writings  by  being  mingled 

1  Ad.  Epict.  10. 

2  d\\o  ixkv  Kal  a\\o  .  .  .  ovk  aWos  St  Kal  aWos. 

3  Kpacns ,  p.tt;is.  Geg.  Naz.  Orat.  38,  13.  He  adds  /car’  overlay. 

4  5t5o  (pvcreLS  els  eu  awSpap-ovaa.  Orat.  37,  2. 

5  Cont.  Eunom.  V.  p.  708.  6  Ibid.  V.  p.  693. 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


151 

with  the  writings  of  Athanasius  and  other  Catholic  Fathers  exerted 
a  modifying  influence  in  orthodox  polemics. 

The  debates  occasioned  by  Apollinaris  resolved  themselves 
into  a  contest  between  the  two  schools,  the  Alexandrian  and  the 
Antiochian.  The  former  pursued,  and  often  with  less  moderation, 
the  way  opened  by  Athanasius  and  the  Cappadocian  bishops.  On 
the  other  hand,  although  Apollinaris  was  an  Antiochian  in  his 
associations,  the  Antiochian  school  of  divines,  of  whom  Theodore, 
Theodoret,  and  Ibas  were  the  principal  representatives,  moved  in 
a  diametrically  opposite  direction.  The  Antiochians  were  critics 
and  exegetes ;  they  inherited  the  scholarly  spirit  of  Origen,  while 
the  impulse  lent  by  him  to  the  cultivation  of  dogmatic  theology 
was  specially  effective  at  Alexandria.  The  Antiochians,  however, 
discarded  allegory.  Their  theology  was  ethical  in  its  character. 
In  their  system,  as  it  is  expounded  by  Theodore,  the  freedom  of 
the  will  holds  a  central  place.  Character  presupposes  at  the  foun¬ 
dation  a  free  exercise  of  moral  choice,  and  that  which  is  true  of 
men  generally  must  be  true  equally  of  the  man  Christ  Jesus.  He 
came  not  only  to  be  a  deliverer  of  men  from  sin,  but  at  the  same 
time  to  raise  up  man  to  a  higher  plane  of  development  than  be¬ 
longed  to  the  first  Adam,  even  before  the  fall.  The  union  of  God 
and  man  must  be  of  such  a  character  that  to  the  man  is  left  full 
liberty  of  action.  God  has  taken  up  His  abode  in  a  perfect  man 
of  the  family  of  David.  This  union  begins  at  the  beginning  of  His 
prenatal  life.  It  is  not,  however,  a  uniting  as  to  essence  or  sub¬ 
stance  ; 1  for  God  as  to  His  essence  is  present  to  all.  Nor  is  it  a 
uniting  of  God  as  to  His  active  energy,2  for  his  Providence,  and 
thus  His  forth-going  energy,  is  universal.  It  is,  therefore,  a  moral 
fellowship  and  communion.3  Yet  it  is  not  on  a  level  with  the  union 
of  God  with  good  men  —  with  the  prophets  and  saints.  It  is  such 
a  union  with  man  that  he  shares  in  the  honor,  glory,  and  dominion 
which  belong  to  the  Logos.  Its  effects,  however,  are  progressive  ; 
they  keep  pace  with  the  free,  ethical  advance  of  Jesus ;  they  are 
not  complete  until  He  is  raised  from  the  dead  and  exalted  to  His 
glorified  life  above. 

In  the  Nestorian  Controversy,  the  difference  between  the  two 
schools  came  to  a  head.  Nestorius,  who  was  educated  in  Antioch, 
became  Bishop  of  Constantinople  in  428.  The  tendency  to  pay 

1  KdT  ova  Lav.  2  Kar’  evfyyeiav. 

3  Kar '  evSoidav  or  Kara  \apiv.  It  is  an  ^vcoais  axeTLKr],  a  avvacpeLa. 


152 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


honor  to  the  Virgin  Mary  was  on  the  increase.  It  was  especially 
manifest  among  the  monks  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  capital. 
Nestorius  protested  against  the  application  to  her  of  the  term 
“  theotokos,” 1  Mother  of  God.  She  should  either  be  called 
‘  mother  of  the  man  ’ 2  Jesus,  or  ‘  mother  of  Christ.’ 3  His  objec¬ 
tion  was  to  the  transference  of  human  attributes  to  the  divine 
Logos.  He  emphatically  denied  that  the  Logos  participated  in 
the  sufferings  of  the  human  nature  of  Christ.  Cyril  of  Alexandria, 
a  man  of  vehement  temper  and  intolerant,  but  sincere  in  his  opin¬ 
ions,  was  quite  ready  to  take  up  the  cause  of  the  adversaries  of 
Nestorius.  Ecclesiastic  rivalship  in  which  the  two  Eastern  Sees 
and  Rome  in  the  West  were  the  several  parties,  was  not  without 
an  important  effect  from  the  beginning  of  the  widespread  and 
lasting  controversy.  Cyril  succeeded  in  procuring  the  support  of 
Ccelestin  I.,  the  Roman  bishop.  A  letter  of  exhortation  from 
Cyril  to  Nestorius  produced  no  result.4  Other  letters  were  writ¬ 
ten  by  both  leaders.  At  an  Alexandrian  Synod  in  430,  Cyril  sent 
forth  twelve  anathemas  against  the  Christological  errors  of  Nesto¬ 
rius.5  The  response  of  the  latter  was  twelve  counter-anathemas. 
The  position  of  Nestorius  was  that  there  was  in  Christ  a  union, 
but  not  a  union  of  essence,  between  God  and  man.  The  Divine 
and  the  Human  entered  into  a  relation  of  constant  co-existence 
and  co-working.  The  divine  Logos  took  up  his  abode  in  the  man 
Jesus.  There  was  a  reciprocal  connection  of  the  two  sets  of 
attributes,  a  mutual  cooperation  for  the  common  end,  but  no 
communication,  no  interchange  of  attributes.  Only  the  smaller 
fraction  of  the  evangelic  affirmations  respecting  Jesus  during  His 
earthly  life  pertain  to  Him  as  at  once  God  and  man.  Most  of 
them  are  true  of  Him  either  as  God  exclusively  or  as  man  exclu¬ 
sively.  As  to  the  former  class,  the  predicates  of  the  God-man, 
they  are  true  solely  on  the  ground  of  the  connection  of  the  two 
natures.  Cyril,  on  the  contrary,  asserted  a  physical  (or  metaphys¬ 
ical)  uniting  of  the  two  natures.  God  becomes  man.6  After  the 
Incarnation,  there  are  two  natures  abstractly  considered,  but  in 
the  concrete  reality  but  one,  —  namely,  the  one  incarnated  nature 

1  M apLa  deoroKos.  2  avOpooirordKos.  3  x/uo-totiS/cos. 

4  Cyril.  Alex.  Opp.  Epist.  IV.  See  Hahn,  p.  235. 

5  The  anathemas  of  Cyril  and  the  correspondence  are  in  Mansi,  Cone.  Coll. 
Vols.  IV.  and  V.,  Hahn,  p.  238  sq. 

G  eyeveTO  avdpujTros,  o’u  avvrjfp^7!  cuOpcoTro). 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


153 


of  the  divine  Logos.1  This  was  thought  to  be  a  phrase  of  Athana¬ 
sius,  but  was  in  the  treatise  against  Apollinaris,  which  was  incor¬ 
rectly  ascribed  to  him.  The  idea  of  Cyril  is  that  the  flesh,  all  the 
human  attributes,  have  become  the  attributes  of  the  Logos  without 
the  loss  of  His  divine  nature.  The  product  is  a  theanthropic 
person,  not  merely  God,  or  merely  man,  but  throughout  both  in 
one.  There  is  thus  in  Christ  incarnate  a  communion  of  attributes. 
There  is  one  subject,  with  one  nature,  which  is  divine-human.  In 
this  literal  sense  the  Logos  has  assumed  humanity.  Hence  it  can 
be  said  that  ‘  God  is  born,’  that  ‘  God  suffered,’  if  only  it  be  added, 
‘  according  to  the  flesh.’2  Nestorius  argued  that  such  a  conception 
clashes  with  the  distinction  between  God  and  man  as  to  essence ; 
that  it  annuls  the  immutability  of  God  by  imputing  to  Him  a 
change  of  nature,  or  a  mixture  with  another  nature,  or  a  change 
of  place  in  coming  into  the  flesh.  But  Cyril  persistently  asserted 
that  the  uniting  of  the  natures  is  not  their  fusion  ;  that  ‘  to  have 
flesh’  is  not  ‘to  be  flesh.’  Nestorius  sought  to  repel  the  infer¬ 
ence  that  by  his  doctrine  the  unity  of  person  was  broken  up, 
since  there  is  a  constant,  harmonious  co-working  of  the  human 
nature  in  subordination  to  the  divine.  The  human  shares  in  the 
dignity  of  the  divine  in  virtue  of  its  connection  with  it.  Cyril 
alleged  that  to  render  divine  honors  to  one  who  is  not  ‘  by  nature 
God  ’  is  man-worship.  Each  party,  that  of  the  Alexandrians  and 
that  of  the  Antiochians,  contended  that  its  own  theory  alone  fur¬ 
nished  a  basis  for  redemption. 

Nestorius  had  explained  his  objection  to  the  word  ‘Theotocosd 
It  was  on  the  ground  of  its  ambiguity.  The  anathemas  of  Cyril 
called  out  answers  from  two  eminent  Antiochians,  Andreas, 
Bishop  of  Samosata,  and  Theodoret,  Bishop  of  Cyrus.  To 
appease  the  strife,  Theodosius  II.  summoned  a  General  Council 
to  meet  at  Ephesus  (431).  But  Cyril,  who  was  attended  by 
a  throng  of  bishops,  a  great  part  of  them  from  Egypt,  did  not 
wait  for  the  arrival  of  the  Oriental  bishops,  but  proceeded  to 
organize  the  Council,  and,  with  Memnon  of  Ephesus  to  assist 
him,  pronounced  Nestorius,  despite  the  protest  of  the  Emperor’s 
Commissioner,  guilty  of  heresy  and  deposed.  The  Orientals, 
when  they  arrived,  organized  separately  under  John,  Bishop 
of  Antioch,  and  proceeded  to  depose  Cyril  and  his  principal 
auxiliary,  Memnon.  Theodosius  was  incensed  at  the  proceeding 

1  p.Lav  (pv<xiv  tov  9eov  \6yov  ae<rapKop.{vr]v. 


2  Kara  aapKa. 


154 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


of  Cyril,  but  was  won  over  to  his  cause  by  the  influence  of  the 
monks,  and  of  officers  of  the  Court,  who  were  corrupted  by 
bribes.  He  had  confirmed  all  three  acts  of  deposition,  but  he 
restored  Cyril  and  Memnon,  while  he  left  Nestorius  in  his  cloister 
at  Antioch.  The  rupture  between  the  Orientals  proper  and  other 
provinces,  especially  Egypt,  led  to  strenuous  efforts  to  patch  up  a 
peace.  To  promote  this  purpose,  Theodosius  exerted  his  author¬ 
ity  in  an  arbitrary  way.  Cyril  was  steadily  gaining  ground  at 
the  Court  and  in  the  Capital.  In  433,  John  of  Antioch  agreed 
upon  terms  of  peace.  Cyril  signed  a  confession  that  was  drawn 
up  by  the  Antiochians  and  contained  nothing  antagonistic  to  their 
opinions.  John  of  Antioch  had  been  a  conservative  supporter  of 
the  anti-Cyrillian  theology,  although  he  had  expostulated  with 
Nestorius  for  raising  a  storm  about  a  word  which  was  capable  of 
an  innocent  interpretation.  Now,  however,  for  the  sake  of  peace, 
and  moved  by  the  threatening  attitude  of  the  Emperor,  he  con¬ 
sented  to  the  condemnation  of  Nestorius  and  of  the  doctrinal 
statements  which  had  been  proscribed.  Nestorius,  a  persecuted 
man,  was  driven  from  one  place  of  refuge  to  another.  He  died 
in  440.  The  theological  school  at  Edessa  —  where  the  Persian 
clergy  had  long  been  educated  —  under  the  lead  of  Rabulas,  a 
deserter  from  the  Nestorian  party,  was  thrown  into  confusion. 
As  the  final  result  it  was  broken  up  (489).  The  Nestorian 
dissentients  fled  into  Persia  and  established  there  a  separate 
Church,  in  which  Theodore  and  the  other  Antiochian  leaders, 
to  the  condemnation  of  whose  writings  they  had  refused  to  con¬ 
sent,  were  held  in  high  esteem. 

There  was  wide  dissatisfaction  with  the  concessions  made  by 
John  in  the  treaty  with  Cyril.  But  in  Egypt  there  was  a  prevalent 
discontent  on  the  other  side,  and  vehement  opposition  to  the 
doctrine  of  two  natures.  The  Cyrillian  partisans  were  accused  by 
the  Orientals  of  Apollinarianism.  At  this  point  there  begins 
another  stage  in  the  prolonged  warfare  of  opinion.  Dioscurus, 
a  violent  man,  the  successor  of  Cyril,  and  bishop  from  444  to  451, 
oppressed  the  Nestorians  and  compelled,  where  he  could,  the 
renunciation  of  their  doctrine.  But  the  ranks  of  the  Cyrillians 
were  broken  through  the  promulgation  by  Eutyches,  an  old 
Archimandrite  of  a  cloister  close  by  Constantinople,  of  an  extreme 
opinion,  an  opinion  that  went  too  far  for  all  but  the  zealots  of  his 
party.  He  held  that  after  the  Incarnation  there  is  only  one 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


155 


nature.  Christ,  he  said,  is  of  two  natures,  but  not  in  two. 
Moreover,  he  held  that  the  body  of  Christ  was  not  of  the  same 
nature  (consubstantial)  with  our  human  bodies.  Prosecuted  by 
Eusebius  of  Dorylseum,  who  had  been  one  of  his  friends,  he  was 
condemned  and  dismissed  from  his  office  by  a  Synod  at  Con¬ 
stantinople  (448)  over  which  Flavianus,  his  bishop,  presided. 
Leo  I.,  the  Bishop  of  Rome,  in  a  long  letter  to  Flavianus, 
approved  of  his  course,  and  set  forth  the  doctrine  relative  to  the 
person  of  Christ  in  which  there  was  a  distinct  assertion  of  the  two 
natures.1  Dioscurus  caused  a  Synod  to  assemble  at  Ephesus  from 
which,  by  means  of  brutal  threats  and  coercion,  a  decree  in  favor 
of  Eutyches  was  extorted.  The  date  of  this  Robber  Synod,  a 
name  given  to  it  by  Leo,  was  449.  Theodosius  had  exerted  his 
power,  in  the  usual  despotic  style,  in  behalf  of  Eutyches ;  but  the 
Emperor’s  death,  in  450,  left  his  sister,  Pulcheria,  with  her 
husband,  Marcianus,  on  the  throne  —  both  hostile  to  the  fanatical 
Alexandrian  bishop  and  in  sympathy  with  Leo.  An  (Ecumenical 
Council  assembled  at  Chalcedon  in  451.  Dioscurus  was  deposed 
for  his  crimes.  Cyril  was  pronounced  orthodox.  Theodoret, 
who  had  been  deposed  by  the  Robber  Synod,  but  who  had  been 
supported  and  declared  to  be  reinstated  by  Leo,  was  now  formally 
restored,  but  was  first  driven  by  the  clamor  raised  in  the  Council 
to  anathematize  not  only  the  doctrine  of  the  “two  sons,”  but, 
also  Nestorius  and  all  others  who  held  it.  The  antipathy  to 
Nestorius  could  nowhere  be  appeased  except  by  a  repudiation  of 
him  by  name.  The  Council  first  declared  its  firm  adhesion  to 
the  Creed  ratified  at  Nicaea  and  Constantinople,  and  the  expo¬ 
sition  of  it  by  Cyril  at  Ephesus.  It  sanctioned  Leo’s  letter  to 
Flavian,  and  framed,  besides,  a  creed  of  its  own.  The  Chalcedon 
Creed  affirmed  that  the  Son  is  consubstantial 2  with  the  Father  as 
to  His  godhead,  and  consubstantial  with  us  as  to  His  humanity, 
that  He  is  the  Son  of  Mary,  the  Mother  of  God,  as  to  His 
humanity,  that  He  is  one  person  in  two  natures,  united  “  incon- 
fusedly,  unchangeably,  indivisibly,  inseparably,” 3  the  property  of 
each  nature  being  preserved  in  the  union,  with  no  parting  or 
dividing  into  two  persons.4  Notwithstanding  the  deference  paid 
by  the  Chalcedon  Fathers  to  Cyril’s  teaching,  Nestorius  might 

1  Mansi,  V.  1366-1390;  Hahn,  Biblioth.  p.  256  sq.  2  ofxoovdLov. 

3  dav yxutws,  drpbTTTus,  adicuptrus, 

4  For  the  creed,  see  Hahn,  p.  84.  In  Mansi  (VII.  108  sq.)  the  reading 


156 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


have  signed  the  Creed,  including  the  title  “  Theotocos,”  as  it  was 
qualified  by  the  words  appended  to  it. 

Here  begin  the  Monophysite  struggles,  the  name  of  Monophy- 
sites  being  given  to  the  opponents  of  the  Chalcedon  Creed  and 
its  affirmation  of  two  natures.  Disturbances  arose  at  once  in 
Palestine,  in  Egypt,  and  even  in  Antioch,  where  Monophysitism 
was  espoused  by  violent  champions.  Of  these  and  the  subsequent 
conflicts,  which  are  often  acrimonious  in  the  extreme,  it  is  possi¬ 
ble  to  give  only  a  bare  sketch.  There  were  armed  encounters  of 
rival  theological  factions.  Bishops,  some  of  them  learned,  and 
godly  up  to  the  measure  of  their  light,  were  driven  into  exile  to 
perish  from  hardship  or  the  cruelty  of  barbarians.  The  tyranny, 
the  fickle  tyranny,  of  the  Byzantine  rulers,  inflicted  harsh  penal¬ 
ties,  now  on  one  side  and  now  on  the  other.  When  the  Emperor 
Basiliscus  gained  the  throne  and  took  up  the  cause  of  the  Mon- 
ophysites,  five  hundred  bishops  signed  a  document  which  he 
issued,  rejecting  the  Chalcedon  Confession.  At  Alexandria,  an 
orthodox  bishop  was  slain  in  the  church.  In  482,  the  Emperor 
Zeno  strove  to  pacify  the  contending  parties  by  the  Henoticon , 
which  laid  emphasis  on  the  points  on  which  they  were  agreed, 
approved  of  Cyril’s  twelve  anathemas,  and  was  silent  or  ambigu¬ 
ous  on  the  Chalcedon  Creed.  While  "this  measure  produced  in 
the  Greek  Empire  a  temporary  quiet,  it  was  openly  opposed  at 
Rome  and  in  the  West  as  a  surrender  to  the  Monophysites.  The 
position  taken  by  Rome  found  sympathy  in  Constantinople,  and 
the  theological  contest  there  was  mixed  up  with  the  political  dis¬ 
order.  Justin  I.  was  obliged  by  the  military  commander,  Vitalian 
(519),  to  comply  with  the  demands  of  Rome,  to  abolish  the 
Henoticon ,  and  formally  to  accept  the  creed  of  Chalcedon.  This 
measure  resulted  in  the  separation  of  the  two  parties,  and  in  the 
course  of  the  sixth  century,  the  Monophysites  formed  sects  in 
Egypt,  Syria,  and  Armenia,  which  still  exist  under  the  names  of 
the  Coptic,  ZEthiopic,  Jacobite,  and  Armenian  Churches.  All 
these  separatists  clung  to  Cyril’s  teaching,  but  disowned  Eutyches. 
The  Emperor  Justinian  set  out  to  bring  back  the  Monophysite 
separatists.  The  Monophysites  had  become  divided  among  them¬ 
selves.  The  Severians  (followers  of  Severus,  Bishop  of  Antioch) 
adhered  to  Cyril,  and  complained  of  the  “  two  natures  ”  of  the 

should  be,  not  ip  8vo  (pvaecnv,  but  e/c  5uo  <pv<jewv.  For  the  proceedings  of  the 
Council  before  and  after  it  was  framed,  see  Hefele,  Vol.  II.  b.  xi. 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


157 


Chalcedon  Creed ;  but  they  held  that  the  body  of  Christ  prior  to 
His  resurrection  was  corruptible.  The  “Julianists,”  in  opposition 
to  “the  corrupticolae,”  as  they  were  nicknamed,  —  ‘worshippers 
of  the  corruptible,’  —  held  that  from  the  Incarnation  the  Saviour’s 
body  was  insusceptible  of  decay.  The  Julianists  were  the  “  Aph- 
thardocetae.”  It  may  be  observed  here  that  Hilary  of  Poictiers, 
the  leading  Nicene  theologian  of  the  West,  had  advocated  the 
opinion  that  it  was  only  by  the  voluntary  consent  of  Jesus  that  he 
suffered  physical  pain  of  any  sort.  There  was  another  movement 
which  looked  in  the  direction  of  harmony.  This  was  a  movement 
led  by  Maxentius,  whom  the  Scythian  monks  followed,  and  by 
Leontius  of  Byzantium,  a  student  of  the  philosophy  of  Aristotle, 
whose  aim  it  was  to  interpret  the  Chalcedon  Creed  in  a  Cyrillian 
sense.1  The  question  was  whether  the  more  moderate  Monophy- 
sites  could  be  conciliated,  and  Rome  be  won  over  to  forms  of 
compromise  which  should  leave  the'  Creed,  nominally  at  least,  in 
full  authority.  Great  efforts  were  made  by  the  Scythian  monks 
to  secure  a  recognition  of  the  phrase  “  One  of  the  Holy  Trinity 
was  crucified.”  2  This  was  a  phrase  which,  tried  by  the  standard 
of  Chalcedon,  was  capable  of  an  orthodox  interpretation.  Jus¬ 
tinian  caused  the  proposition  that  “  God  was  crucified  for  us,” 
to  be  embodied  in  a  law  (533),  and  to  be  sanctioned  by  an 
(Ecumenical  Synod  (the  5th)  at  Constantinople  in  553.  There, 
also,  was  ratified  his  edict  issued  554,  “The  Three  Chapters,”3 
in  which  were  condemned  the  writings  of  Theodore  of  Mopsues- 
tia,  and  certain  anti-Cyrillian  writings  of  Theodoret  and  Ibas,  his 
most  eminent  followers.4  In  these  proceedings,  the  antagonism 
of  Rome  and  of  the  Churches  of  the  West  was  met  by  despotic, 
coercive  measures.  The  resistance  of  Vigilius,  Bishop  of  Rome, 
was  overcome,  and  likewise  the  opposition  of  his  successor,  Pe- 
lagius  I.  The  result  was  that  several  important  churches  in  the 
West  broke  off  communion  with  Rome,  and  remained  thus  sepa¬ 
rate  until  unity  was  restored  by  Gregory  I.  Justinian  likewise 
embraced  the  opinion  of  the  Theopaschites, —  the  Aphthardocetae, 
—  and  in  564  declared  it  to  be  the  orthodox  doctrine.  Nothing 
but  his  death  in  565  prevented  the  slavish  clergy  who  were 

1  See  Loofs,  Text.  u.  Untersuch.  von  Gebh.  u.  Harnack,  III.  1,  2. 

2  eva  ttjs  ayias  rpiddos  ireTrovdevcu  <Jo,pKl.  "  Tpia  KecpaXeLa. 

4  For  the  fourteen  anathemas  of  the  Council,  see  Mansi,  IX.  3^7“37 5> 

Hahn,  p.  86  sq. 


i58 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


governed  by  his  decrees  from  giving  their  assent  to  the  Caesarian 
dogma. 

With  the  death  of  Justinian,  the  shield  which  had  been  ex¬ 
tended  over  the  Monophysites,  in  great  part  through  the  sym¬ 
pathy  of  Pulcheria,  his  wife,  was  withdrawn.  For  a  half  century 
there  followed  an  alternation  of  favor  and  persecution  in  the 
treatment  of  them.  To  reconcile  them  to  the  Chalcedon  symbol 
continued  to  be  a  part  of  the  imperial  policy.  In  622,  Hera- 
clius,  in  his  expedition  against  Persia,  tarried  in  Armenia  and 
Syria,  and  there  was  told  by  certain  Monophysite  bishops  that 
what  was  especially  repugnant  in  the  Chalcedon  definitions  was 
the  implication  of  two  wills  in  Christ.  Supported  by  Sergius, 
Patriarch  of  Constantinople,  and  bent  on  securing  the  union  of 
parties,  the  Emperor  declared  for  the  doctrine  of  one  will  —  the 
Monothelite  view.  The  great  obstacle  seemed  to  be  removed 
when  Honorius,  the  Bishop  of  Rome,  expressed  himself  in  accord¬ 
ance  with  it.1  But  opposition  arose  on  the  orthodox  side,  So- 
phronius,  a  monk  of  Constantinople,  being  active  in  fomenting  it. 
He  acquired  increased  influence  when,  in  638,  he  became  Patri¬ 
arch  of  Jerusalem.  It  was  now  the  time  for  efforts  to  quiet  the 
storm  which  had  been  excited.  In  638,  Heraclius  issued  a  docu¬ 
ment  called  the  Ec thesis,  composed  by  Sergius,  which  asserted 
the  unity  of  the  person  of  Christ,  the  centre  of  all  activities,  for¬ 
bade  the  teaching  of  either  one  or  two  modes  of  activity,  but 
declared  that  in  Christ  there  is  only  one  will,  morally  speaking, 
—  one  “  thelema .”  The  Monophysites  were  pleased,  although 
nothing  beyond  a  moral  unity  of  will  was  affirmed.  But  Theo¬ 
dore  I.,  the  Roman  bishop,  was  not  to  be  won  over.  He  cordially 
received  Paulus,  who  had  been  deposed  from  the  See  of  Constan¬ 
tinople,  and  at  a  public  disputation  at  Carthage  had  been  con¬ 
verted  from  Monothelitism  by  Maximus,  who  like  him  had  come 
over  to  Africa.  Constans  II.,  in  648,  issued  the  Typos  (Precept), 
which  forbade  all  controversy  on  the  subject.  Martin  I.,  Bishop 
of  Rome,  at  the  first  Lateran  Synod  at  Rome,  in  649,  condemned 

1  This  he  did  in  two  letters.  For  his  opinion  on  this  question  he  was 
denounced  as  heretical  by  the  Sixth  General  Council,  and  anathematized 
later  by  Pope  Leo  II.  Down  to  vthe  eleventh  century,  every  Pope  on  his 
election  had  to  ratify  the  condemnation  of  Honorius.  The  question  relative 
to  his  heterodoxy  was  warmly  debated  at  the  time  of  the  Vatican  Council. 
The  points  in  dispute,  with  the  literature  on  the  subject,  are  given  by  Schaff, 
Church  History,  IV.  500-506. 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


159 


both  the  Ec thesis  and  the  Typos ,  and  their  authors.  Both  he  and 
Maximus  were  dragged  off  to  Constantinople  and  perished  in 
exile.  Superficial  amity  ensued  between  Rome  and  Constanti¬ 
nople.  But  the  son  and  successor  of  Constans  II.  found  it  neces¬ 
sary  to  assemble  an  (Ecumenical  Council  —  the  sixth,  or  First 
Trullan,  Council  —  at  Constantinople  (680).  As  Leo  I.  had 
furnished  the  basis  for  the  Chalcedon  definition,  so  Agatho,  now 
Bishop  of  Rome,  who  was  determined  to  stand  by  the  decisions 
of  the  Lateran  Synod,  wrote  a  letter,  the  doctrine  of  which  formed 
the  creed  of  the  Council.  The  will,  Agatho  said,  is  a  property 
of  the  nature,  so  that  as  there  are  two  natures,  there  are  two 
wills ;  but  the  human  will  determines  itself  ever  comformably  to 
the  divine  and  almighty  will.  The  creed  was  an  addition  to  the 
Chalcedon  symbol  and  declared  of  the  two  wills  just  what  that 
symbol  had  asserted  of  the  two  natures.  Conformably  to  the 
accepted  psychology  of  the  time,  according  to  which  the  will  was 
a  component  attribute  of  the  nature,  the  conclusion  was  a  logical 
one.  The  Dyothelite  opinion  was  thus  converted  into  a  dogma. 
The  Monothelite  opinion  was  still  cherished  by  the  Maronites, 
separatists  from  the  Catholic  body.1 

We  have  now  to  consider  briefly  the  doctrine  of  the  person  of 
Christ  as  it  is  set  forth  by  the  most  authoritative  of  the  Greek 
theologians  after  this  time,  John  of  Damascus.2  The  unity  of  the 
two  natures  it  is  attempted  to  secure  by  relegating  to  the  divine 
Logos  the  formative  and  controlling  agency.  It  is  not  a  human 
individual  that  the  Logos  assumes,  nor  is  it  humanity,  or  human 
nature,  in  general.  It  is  rather  a  potential  human  individual,  a 
nature  not  yet  developed  into  a  person  or  hypostasis.  The  hy¬ 
postasis  through  which  this  takes  place  is  the  personal  Logos 
through  whose  union  with  this  potential  man,  in  the  womb  of 
Mary,  the  potential  man  acquires  a  concrete  reality,  an  individual 
existence.  He  has,  therefore,  no  hypostasis  of  himself  but  only 
in  and  through  the  Logos.  It  is  denied  that  he  is  non-hypostatic  ; 3 
it  is  affirmed  that  he  is  en-hypostatic .4  Two  natures  may  form  a 

1  For  the  sources  and  the  literature  pertaining  to  Monothelitism,  see  Mol- 
ler’s  art.,  Monotheliten ,  Real-Encycl.  Vol.  X.  p.  804. 

2  The  Christology  of  John  of  Damascus  is  instructively  described  by  Dor- 
ner,  Person  Christi,  Vol.  II.  pp.  258-281,  Thomasius,  DG.  I.  pp.  386-392,  A. 
Dorner,  Real-Encycl.  VII.  29  sq. 

3  avvirbaraTos. 


4  IvvirbvTaTos. 


!6o  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 

unity,  as  the  body  and  soul  in  man.  So  man,  both  soul  and  body, 
is  brought  into  unity  with  the  Logos ;  there  being  then  one 
hypostasis  for  both  natures.  There  is  a  circumincession1  of  the 
divine  and  human,  an  interchange  of  attributes.  There  is  a  com¬ 
munication  of  divine  attributes  to  the  human  nature  so  that  the 
latter  is  deified,"  and  so  that  we  may  say  that  God  has  suffered  in 
the  flesh.  But  in  this  interchange  the  human  nature  is  merely 
receptive  and  passive.  The  Son  of  God  —  the  humanity,  the 
flesh,  included  —  is  to  be  worshipped.  The  will,  in  accordance 
with  the  current  psychology,  is  regarded  as  a  quality  of  the  nature, 
and  it  is  said  that  in  Christ  the  human  will  has  become  the  will  of 
the  incarnate  God.  It  is  simply  the  organ  of  the  divine  will. 
While  the  Damascene  makes  distinctions  which  are  intended  to 
preserve  the  reality  of  the  human  nature  in  Christ,  the  drift  of  his 
teaching  is  in  the  Monophysite  direction. 

On  the  subject  of  the  Trinity,  the  Damascene  lays  emphasis 
upon  the  unity  of  persons.  The  unity  is  the  real,3  the  trinity  the 
logical.4  The  distinction  is  in  the  fatherhood,  the  sonship,  and 
the  procession.  There  is  a  circumincession,  so  that  neither  is 
conceivable  without  the  others.  The  Father  is  the  ground  and 
cause  of  all.  But  the  three  are  one  in  knowing,  willing,  and 
acting. 

1  7re/)txa»/)77cris.  3  rb  kolvov  kcli  ev  tv  pay  p.aT  i. 

2  dtwais  ttjs  (rapubs.  4  €ttl voiq.. 


CHAPTER  V 


THE  DOCTRINES  NOT  DEFINED  IN  THE  (ECUMENICAL  COUNCILS 

Beyond  the  group  of  doctrines  which  formed  the  subject  of 
conciliar  verdicts  and  were  thus  converted  into  dogmas,  we  find 
no  close  agreement  among  the  Greek  Fathers  who  were  reputed 
orthodox,  nor  do  we  observe  in  any  single  author  a  very  near 
approach  to  consistency  with  himself.  We  have  in  mind  the  great 
productive  period,  the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries.  Beginning  with 
the  work  of  Christ,  we  should  greatly  err  if  we  referred  the  absorp¬ 
tion  in  the  questions  relating  to  the  Divinity  of  Christ  and  the 
constitution  of  His  person  to  a  Greek  fondness  for  subtle  meta¬ 
physical  discussion,  as  its  chief  source.  There  was  a  deep  prac¬ 
tical  motive  connected  with  these  inquiries.  They  borrowed  their 
interest  from  the  underlying  conviction  that  the  work  of  Christ  as 
a  Saviour  is  inseparably  involved  in  them.  One  striking  phenom¬ 
enon  in  the  Greek  theology  is  the  quite  subordinate  place  allotted 
to  the  Atonement,  in  comparison  with  the  relation  of  Christ  to  the 
deliverance  of  man  from  the  power  and  the  subjective  conse¬ 
quences  of  sin.  The  same  is  true  of  the  Latin  Fathers,  even  of 
Augustine,  although  not  in  so  great  a  degree.  This  peculiarity  of 
the  Fathers,  especially  of  the  Greek  Church,  is  due  to  the  weak¬ 
ness  of  the  feeling  of  guilt  in  connection  with  sin,  when  compared 
with  the  sense  of  its  power,  or  baleful  spiritual  effects.  It  is 
another  ruling  idea  in  the  Greek  theology  that  one  essential  need 
of  the  soul  is  enlightenment,  a  regaining  and  increase  of  our 
knowledge  of  God,  which  sin  has  obscured.  Bearing  these  things 
in  mind,  we  are  less  surprised  to  find  Gregory  of  Nazianzum  put¬ 
ting  the  sufferings  of  Christ  in  a  list  along  with  matter,  the  soul, 
the  resurrection,  the  judgment,  retribution,  and  other  subjects, — 
themes  on  which  it  is  considered  that  one  may  philosophize  prof¬ 
itably,  and  respecting  which  there  is  no  danger  of  going  astray.1 

1  Orat.  XXVII.  io  (/cat  to  SiafxapT&i'eiv  aKivdvi'ov'). 
m  161 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


162 


The  one  pervading  thought  of  the  Greek  Fathers  concerning 
the  redemptive  work  of  Christ  is  that  men  are  thereby  brought 
into  unity  with  God.  They  do  not  hesitate  to  designate  this 
unity  as  a  deification.  It  is  an  apotheosis.  They  dwell  on  the 
idea  that  we  “become  partakers  of  the  divine  nature.”1  To  this 
end  the  death  and  resurrection  of  Jesus  were  requisite.  They 
were  requisite  to  the  full  deliverance  and  perfection  of  humanity. 
Connected  with  this  prevalent  thought,  however,  there  is  still 
found  in  leading  Fathers  the  old  notion  of  a  ransom  paid  to  Satan 
for  man’s  release.  Nor  i&  there  absent  the  conception  of  an 
endurance  by  Christ  of  the  curse  in  response  to  a  demand  in  the 
divine  character  and  administration.  But  the  great  effect  to  be 
wrought,  the  great  blessing  to  be  bestowed,  is  “incorruption.”2 

In  Athanasius,  the  relation  of  the  work  of  Christ  to  Satan  retires 
into  the  background.  In  his  treatise  on  the  Incarnation  he  sets 
forth  the  grounds  of  the  need  of  the  Incarnation  and  of  the  death 
*  of  Jesus.3  The  veracity  of  God  would  not  have  been  maintained 
had  the  law  which  threatened  death  not  been  carried  out.  More¬ 
over,  He  would  have  failed  in  his  purpose  in  creating  man.  In 
this  sense,  He  would  have  failed  in  “goodness.” 4  It  would  not 
have  been  “  becoming  ”  in  God  to  leave  his  creature  to  perish. 
The  difficulty  was  removed  by  the  death  of  Jesus.  Moreover,  if 
men  had  repented .  they  might  have  fallen  again  had  not  more 
been  done  than  merely  to  pardon  them.  If  a  king  had  built  a 
city,  and,  owing  to  the  negligence  of  the  citizens,  it  is  seized  by 
robbers,  he  will  not  forsake  it,  but  will  do  what  is  “becoming  to 
him  ” 5  to  protect  and  defend  it.  So  the  Word  of  God,  the  all¬ 
good  Father,  did  not  leave  the  race  of  men  to  go  down  to  corrup¬ 
tion,  but  He  obliterated  death,  by  the  offering  of  His  own  body, 
and  “  set  right  their  negligence  by  His  teaching,  setting  right  all 
things  pertaining  to  man  by  His  virtue  and  power.”6  Just  as  an 
Emperor  by  taking  up  his  abode  in  one  house  in  a  city,  deters 
enemies  from  attacking  it,  so  that  it  is  made  safe  by  his  simple 
presence,  so  the  Son  of  God  has  come  into  our  region,  and  taken 
up  His  abode  in  one  of  our  bodies,  with  the  effect  that  all  enemies, 
even  the  “  corruption  of  death,”  have  vanished.7  These  parables 

1  2  Peter  i.  4.  2  acpOapcria.  3  De  Incarnat.  6-io. 

4  ayadoT-qs.  Yet  the  “compassion”  of  God  is  not  wholly  left  out.  See 
§  12,  §  14.  The  love  (<; pCKavdpuTria )  of  Jesus  is  more  often  brought  in. 

5  els  to  eavrov  vpiirov.  6  §  10.  7  §  9. 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


163 


are  left  without  a  definite  interpretation.  At  a  later  date  in  the  Arian 
Controversy,  Athanasius  handles  the  same  theme  in  a  similar  vein.1 
It  would  not  have  been  either  fitting  or  profitable  to  men  for  God 
“  to  undo  the  curse  ”  by  a  bare  decree.  If  He  had  done  so,  man 
might  have  become  worse.  Man  must  remain  mortal  unless  “  he 
is  joined  to  God.”  Christ  offers  to  death  His  own  body,  so  that  all 
may  be  freed  from  sin  and  the  curse.  “  Man  joined  to  a  thing  made 
would  not  have  been  made  God,  unless  the  Son  were  very  God.  .  .  . 
We  should  not  have  been  delivered  from  sin  and  the  curse  had  not 
the  flesh  (which  the  Logos  assumed)  been  by  nature  human.” 
Through  the  whole  discussion  the  idea  of  the  necessity  of  being 
“joined  to  God”  is  uppermost. 

The  conception  of  a  ransom  paid  by  Christ  to  Satan  is  set  forth 
by  Gregory  of  Nyssa.  God  would  take  away  from  Satan  all  ground 
for  the  complaint  of  injustice  in  dealing  with  Him.  He  would  not, 
therefore,  wrest  from  the  Evil  One  the  captives  whom  he  held  in 
his  power  through  their  own  self-surrender.  Hence  the  plan  to 
deliver  them  by  purchase.  Satan,  attracted  by  a  view  of  the  power 
to  work  miracles  and  by  other  qualities  of  Christ,  was  willing  to 
part  with  his  hold  on  men  in  exchange  for  Him.  By  His  being 
veiled  in  human  form,  Satan  was  deceived ;  for  he  could  not  have 
endured  the  unveiled  manifestation  of  Deity.  In  this  plan  the 
wisdom  of  God  was  exerted,  as  well  as  His  goodness  and  His  power. 
Gregory  of  Nazianzum  protests  against  the  opinion  that  Satan,  an 
unrighteous  usurper  of  power,  is  entitled  to  a  ransom.  It  is  given 
to  God,  not  because  he  demanded  or  needed  a  price,  but  because 
through  the  Incarnation,  man  could  be  purified  and  made  holy. 
It  was  a  part  of  the  method  of  salvation.  Yet  Gregory  finds  a 
place  for  the  deceiving  of  Satan,  who,  on  account  of  the  human 
form  of  the  Saviour,  imagined  that  his  contest  was  only  with  an 
ordinary  man. 

As  to  redemption  subjectively  considered,  the  Greek  Fathers 
hold  that  grace  and  human  agency  are  cooperative.  But  this 
topic  is  best  considered  in  connection  with  their  views  of  Anthro¬ 
pology. 

After  the  beginning  of  the  fifth  century,  Creationism  —  the  doc¬ 
trine  of  the  creation  of  souls  individually  —  prevailed  in  the  West : 
but  the  Greek  Fathers  were  not  united  in  this  opinion.  The  Tra- 
ducian  view  was  favored  by  Gregory  of  Nyssa.  Origen’s  doctrine 

1  Adv.  Ar.  Orat.  II.  §  66  sq. 


164 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


of  preexistence  was  more  and  more  proscribed  and  at  length 
deemed  to  be  heterodox  (553).  With  Origen,  immortality  was 
generally  thought  to  be  a  natural  property  of  the  soul.  In  the 
analysis  of  human  nature,  some  —  of  whom  Gregory  of  Nyssa  was 
one  —  adhered  to  the  Platonic  trichotomy,  while  others  —  including 
Athanasius  —  were  dichotomists.  By  some  of  the  Greek  Fathers, 
the  distinction  was  made  between  the  image  and  the  similitude  of 
God.  The  image  of  God  denoted  man’s  natural  powers  of  reason 
and  will,  and  included  the  dominion  given  to  him  over  the  lower 
creation.  Gregory  of  Nyssa  makes  the  similitude  to  consist  in  the 
qualities  of  the  Christian  produced  by  the  Holy  Spirit.  A  defining 
characteristic  of  the  Greek  Anthropology  is  the  uniformity  and 
emphasis  with  which  the  freedom  of  the  will,  and  its  continued 
liberty  after  the  incoming  of  sin,  is  asserted.  The  Fathers  are 
agreed  in  tracing  the  sinfulness  of  mankind  to  the  voluntary  trans¬ 
gression  of  Adam.  They  agree  in  teaching  that  this  transgression 
brought  the  race  of  mankind  under  the  dominion  of  Satan.  The 
discernment  of  God  and  of  divine  things  became  clouded.  Sensual 
propensities  gained  an  augmented  force.  Nature  and  the  revealed 
law  were  ineffectual  for  man’s  recovery.  This  is  achieved  only 
through  the  incarnate  Logos,  the  source  of  man’s  original  endowment 
of  reason  and  spiritual  perception.  The  baneful  effect  of  sin  in  the 
individual  goes  forward  gradually,  from  one  degree  of  depravation 
to  another.  This  is  the  declaration  of  Athanasius.  The  sum  of  the 
consequences  of  Adam’s  fall  is  made  to  consist  in  the  dominion  of 
Satan,  in  mortality,  and  the  increased  exposure  to  the  seductions 
of  evil.  Yet  by  the  Greek  Fathers  the  reign  of  sin  in  mankind  is 
depicted  in  strong  colors.  This  is  true,  for  example,  of  Athanasius  ; 
and  there  are  passages  in  Gregory  of  Nyssa  which,  were  they  all 
that  this  author  says  on  the  subject,  might  lead  us  to  infer  that  he 
held  to  an  inherited  sinful  depravity,  involving  guilt.  But  such  was 
not  the  fact.  When  Athanasius  says  that  as  man  can  turn  to  things 
good,  so  he  can  turn  away  from  the  same,1  and  when  Methodius 
says  that  “  sin  is  an  act  of  personal  freedom,  without  which  there 
is  neither  sin  nor  virtue,  neither  reward  nor  punishment,”  they 
express  the  common  conviction  of  the  Greek  theologians.  The 
sharp  distinction  between  nature  and  will  is  drawn  out  by  Athana¬ 
sius  in  a  passage  having  direct  reference  to  the  generation  of  the 
Logos.-  Chrysostom,  commenting  on  the  51st  Psalm,  says  that 

1  Con t.  Gent.  4. 


2  C.  Ar.  III.  66. 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


165 


with  the  first  sin  a  path  was  opened  for  the  progress  of  sin  over 
the  whole  race.  Adam  and  Eve  have  generated  children  who  are 
mortal,  and  subject  to  the  influence  of  passion  and  appetite.  The 
reason  is  obliged  to  war  against  these,  and  wins  glory  by  victory  or 
shame  by  defeat.  In  reference  to  Romans  v.  19,  Chrysostom  says 
that  a  man  would  not  deserve  punishment,  “  if  it  were  not  from  his 
own  self  that  he  became  a  sinner.”  When  the  posterity  of  Adam 
are  called  sinners,  it  means  that  they  share  in  Adam’s  punishment 
by  being  condemned  to  death.  If  the  question  is  asked,  how  is 
this  just,  the  answer  is  given  that  death  and  the  calamities  akin  to 
it  are  a  benefit  to  us,  for  we  get  from  them  “  numberless  grounds  ” 
for  being  good.  The  present  life  is  a  “  sort  of  school,”  and  made 
such  by  the  discipline  of  suffering.  Cyril  of  Jerusalem  says  explic¬ 
itly,  “  we  come  sinless  into  this  world  ;  we  sin  now  voluntarily.”  1 
Athanasius  goes  so  far  as  to  say  that  there  have  been  many  saints 
who  have  been  free  from  all  sin.  Jeremiah  and  John  the  Baptist 
are  mentioned  as  examples.  Gregory  of  Nyssa,  Gregory  of  Nazian- 
zum,  Basil,  and  Chrysostom  pronounce  new-born  children  free  from 
sin.  It  may  seem  difficult  to  reconcile  passages  like  these  just 
referred  to  with  other  utterances  found  in  the  same  teachers.  In 
passages  of  a  different  tenor,  however,  they  have  in  mind  a  corrup¬ 
tion  that  does  not  involve  guilt.  Nevertheless,  it  is  vain  to  attempt 
to  reduce  the  teaching  of  the  Greek  Fathers,  even  the  most  eminent 
of  them,  to  entire  logical  consistency. 

As  might  be  expected,  the  renewal  of  the  soul  is  made  to  be 
the  result  of  the  factors,  divine  grace  and  the  exertion  of  man’s 
free-will.  As  a  rule,  the  exertion  of  free-will,  human  efforts  in 
a  right  direction,  precede  the  divine  aid,  and  render  men  worthy 
of  it.  It  is  a  doctrine  of  synergism.  God  and  man  cooperate. 
The  lack  of  a  distinct  and  self-consistent  separation  of  that  which 
is  natural,  and  that  which  is  an  added  supernatural  gift,  in  the 
soul,  leads  in  some  cases  to  a  seeming  reduction  of  the  agency 
of  the  divine  factor  in  regeneration.  This  remark  applies  to 
Athanasius.2  In  harmony  with  the  foregoing  views  as  to  human 
freedom  and  responsibility,  conditional  predestination  is  the  doc¬ 
trine  inculcated  by  the  Greek  Fathers.  Election  is  a  pre-ordina- 
tion  of  blessings  or  rewards  for  such  as  are  foreseen  to  be,  up  to 
a  certain  measure,  worthy  of  them.  As  an  illustration,  we  may 

1  Cat.  IV.  19;  see  also  21. 

2  See  the  remarks  of  Ilarnack,  DG.  II.  146  sq. 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


1 66 

refer  to  Chrysostom’s  interpretation  of  the  ninth  chapter  of 
Romans.1  The  choice  of  Jacob  instead  of  Esau  is  accounted 
for  by  a  perception  by  God,  beforehand,  of  merits  in  the  elect 
one.  The  reference  to  the  potter  and  the  clay  is  not  intended 
to  deny  merit  or  freedom  of  choice,  but  is  a  rebuke  of  presump¬ 
tion  on  the  part  of  those  who  cannot  see  all  that  God  sees,  —  of 
those  who  “  will  not  allow  Him  to  know  who  is  worthy  and  who 
is  not  so.” 

The  Greek  Fathers  have  much  to  say  of  the  necessity  and 
value  of  faith  in  the  process  of  salvation.  Passages  which  are 
truly  Evangelical  and  Pauline  are  frequently  to  be  met  with  in 
their  writings.  Yet,  as  a  rule,  they  fail  to  discern  that  genetic 
relation  of  faith  to  works  which  is  an  essential  feature  of  the 
Apostle  Paul’s  teaching.  Hence  we  find  in  them  Pauline  state¬ 
ments  mingled  with  expressions  of  a  different  tenor.  Good  works 
are  coordinated  with  faith,  as  a  condition  of  salvation.  As  this 
is  true  of  Justin,  Iraeneus,  and  Origen,  so  is  it  of  their  successors. 
For  example,  Cyril  of  Jerusalem  says  that  the  way  of  godliness 
consists  of  these  two  things,  pious  doctrines  and  virtuous  prac¬ 
tices,2  and  in  another  place  he  says  that  the  ways  of  finding  eternal 
life  are  many.  Among  them,  along  with  faith  are  enumerated 
martyrdom  and  confession  in  ChrisPs  name,  the  preference  of 
Christ  to  kindred  or  riches,  departing  from  evil  works,  etc.  “For 
the  Lord  has  opened  not  one  or  two  only,  but  many  doors,  to 
eternal  life.”3  Chrysostom,  while  he  frequently  approaches  near 
to  the  Pauline  conception,  yet  here  and  there  makes  good  works 
supplementary  to  faith  rather  than  its  fruit.  The  separation  of 
faith  from  works  naturally  led  to  another  conception  of  faith  which 
resolved  it  into  the  reception  of  doctrines,  the  mind’s  assent  to 
the  creed.  The  transition,  moreover,  was  easy  to  the  idea  that 
almsgiving,  fasting,  prayers,  and  the  like,  were  included  in  good 
works  as  a  part  of  the  required  complement  of  faith.  In  general 
it  may  be  said  that  while  it  would  be  an  exaggeration  to  allege 
that  the  Pauline  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith  suffered  an 
eclipse,  yet  in  a  very  perceptible  degree  it  was  obscured. 

What  the  Latins  called  ‘  sacraments,’  the  Greeks  called  1  mys¬ 
teries.’  The  Latin  Versions  of  the  New  Testament  rendered  the 
term  ‘  mystery  ’  by  1  sacrament.’ 4  The  doctrine  of  the  Latins  in 


1  Homilies ,  XVI. 

2  Cat.  IV.  2. 


3  Ibid.  XVIII.  31,  30. 

4  Eph.  v.  32. 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


167 

this  period  on  the  sacraments  was  connected  with  the  term  not  in 
its  classic,  but  its  etymologic  sense,  in  which  it  designated  some¬ 
thing  holy  or  consecrated.  How  far  the  ideas  and  rites  which 
gradually  associated  themselves  in  the  ancient  Church,  East  and 
West,  with  the  sacraments  or  mysteries,  were  moulded  or  modified 
by  the  heathen  mysteries  and  by  other  cults  with  which  the  con¬ 
verts  to  Christianity  were  conversant,  is  a  subject  that  would 
require  a  searching  and  elaborate  investigation.  That  the  Greek 
theology  in  process  of  time  became  permeated  with  beliefs  and 
sentiments  that  gathered  about  the  Christian  “  mysteries,”  is  a 
fact  beyond  question.  In  the  patristic  usage,  the  word  ‘  mystery  ’ 
was  applied  to  whatever  was  at  once  mysterious  and  sacred,  and 
especially  to  objects  or  transactions  of  a  symbolical  character, 
where  an  occult  reality  was  conceived  to  be  hidden  beneath  their 
material  aspect.  Hence  the  term  had  no  definite  limit  in  its 
application.  Pseudo-Dionysius,  in  a  passage  where  it  is  not  clear 
that  he  is  giving  an  exhaustive  list,  enumerates  six  sacraments, 
viz.,  baptism,  the  Lord’s  Supper,  unction  —  meaning,  perhaps, 
confirmation  —  the  consecration1  of  priests,  the  consecration  of 
monks,  and  the  rites  of  burial.  In  this  period  it  is  Baptism  and 
the  Lord’s  Supper  which  are  accounted  the  principal  sacraments. 

Baptism  was  regarded  as  the  Sacrament  of  Regeneration,  and  is 
not  unfrequently  so  styled.  More  specifically  it  brings  the  pardon 
of  sins  in  the  past,  and  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  The  Cappado¬ 
cian  Fathers  add  other  blessings.  The  Greeks  adhered  to  the 
earlier  prevalent  view  that  the  soul  in  baptism  is  cleansed  from 
sin  itself  as  well  as  from  its  guilt.  When  we  inquire  into  the  mode 
in  which  the  effects  of  the  Sacrament  are  communicated,  we  find 
that  it  is  never  considered  as  exclusively  a  symbol.  The  spiritual 
blessings  are  held  to  be  bestowed  with  the  application  of  the 
baptismal  water,  either  concurrently  but  independently,  or  through 
the  action  of  a  power  imparted  to  the  water  itself.  It  is  not 
always  easy  to  distinguish  which  of  these  views  is  meant  to  be 
expressed.  The  Gregories  appear  to  teach  merely  the  simulta¬ 
neous  action  of  the  water  and  of  the  spirit,  the  one  being  simply 
the  type  of  the  other.  But  Cyril  of  Jerusalem  goes  farther  when 
he  exhorts  his  readers  to  “  regard  not  the  Laver  as  mere  water,”  2 
adding  that  the  water  after  the  invocation  acquires  a  new  power  of 
holiness.  More  explicit  and  more  extreme  is  Cyril  of  Alexandria. 

2  Atro v  vd(i)p  :  Cat.  III.  3>  4- 


1  reAelaxm. 


1 68 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


“By  the  Holy  Ghost,”  he  says,  “the  water  perceived  by  the  senses 
is  metamorphosed1  into  a  certain  divine  and  ineffable  power.”2 
Notwithstanding  the  use  of  these  strong  expressions,  the  actual 
conversion  of  the  water  into  a  different  substance,  as  is  shown  by 
other  passages  in  the  same  authors,  is  not  meant. 

In  the  investigation  of  the  history  of  the  doctrine  respecting 
the  Lord’s  Supper,  two  points  are  to  be  considered,  viz.,  the  view 
of  it  as  an  offering,  and  the  view  taken  of  it  as  a  sacrament  in  the 
stricter  sense. 

In  the  Church  at  the  outset,  the  bread  and  wine  brought  as 
gifts  for  the  Agape  and  for  sacramental  use,  together  with  the 
prayers  and  thanksgivings,  constituted  the  oblation,  the  centre 
and  soul  of  which  was  the  pure  heart.3  Thanks  were  offered  for 
earthly  blessings  as  well  as  for  redemption  through  Christ.  The 
idea  of  a  repetition  in  the  Eucharist  of  the  atoning  sacrifice  of 
Christ,  and  hence  of  a  propitiatory  value  attached  to  the  rite,  is 
first  broached,  although  even  then  in  not  a  very  clear  way,  by 
Cyprian.  It  is  in  keeping  with  his  definite  sacerdotal  idea  of 
the  ministry.  Much  later,  through  Gregory  I.,  it  takes  the  form 
of  a  distinct  doctrine. 

Peculiar  difficulties  arise  when  we  seek  to  get  at  a  precise 
meaning  in  what  the  Fathers  say  relative  to  the  Lord’s  Supper 
as  a  sacrament,  —  the  relation  of  the  bread  and  wine  to  the  body 
and  blood  of  Christ.  Are  they  speaking  literally  or  in  a  figure  ? 
Are  they  defining  doctrine,  or  repeating  the  phraseology  of  the 
liturgy?  What  is  said  in  homiletical  or  catechetical  writings  may 
not  accord  with  what  is  said  in  writings  of  a  different  description. 
Moreover,  ‘  symbol  ’  is  not  used  with  the  intent  to  exclude  a  real¬ 
ity  inseparable  from  it.  The  main  inquiry  is,  what  is  that  reality? 
Origen  may  be  designated  a  symbolist,  or  a  spiritualist,  for  the 
reason  that  the  reality  denoted  by  the  elements  is  made  to  be  the 
teaching  of  Christ.  He  compares  them  to  the  showbread  which 
is  exhibited  in  the  temple,  which  has  the  character  of  a  propitia¬ 
tory  commemoration.  Eusebius  of  Caesarea  is  more  definite  in 
propounding  this  last  interpretation  of  the  sacrament.  The  Alex¬ 
andrians  generally  exhibit  in  a  marked  way  a  like  tendency.  This 
is,  on  the  whole,  the  position  of  Athanasius,  notwithstanding  forms 

1  Ateracrroixetoyrai. 

2  See  the  comments,  with  the  citations,  in  F.  Nitzsch,  DG.  p.  389. 

3  According  to  Malachi,  i.  11. 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


169 


of  expression  which,  taken  by  themselves,  might  lead  to  an  oppo¬ 
site  conclusion.  There  is  still  more  doubt  respecting  the  opinion 
of  Basil,  who  has  often  been  ranked  with  the  “  Symbolists.”  Ori- 
gen  was  aware  that  he  was  setting  forth  a  more  spiritual  view  than 
that  adopted  by  Christians  generally.  After  the  middle  of  the 
fourth  century,  the  tendency  towards  a  more  literal  interpretation 
of  the  words  of  the  Lord  in  instituting  the  Supper  prevailed. 
This  is  apparent,  along  with  inconsistencies  of  statement,  in  Cyril 
of  Jerusalem.  In  Gregory  of  Nyssa  and  Chrysostom,  and  in  John 
of  Damascus,  the  doctrine  is  presented  of  a  transformation  of  the 
elements  in  connection  with  the  prayer  of  consecration.  Gregory 
says  of  bread  that  it  was  potentially  the  body  of  Christ,  for  after 
it  was  eaten  by  him  it  became  assimilated,  entering  into  his  body. 
As  such  it  became  imperishable.  So  the  bread  in  the  sacrament 
is  made,  upon  its  consecration,  the  body  of  the  divine  Logos. 
There  is  the  qualification  that  it  is  not  the  body  which  was  cruci¬ 
fied  and  rose  from  the  dead,  but  the  Eucharistic  body.  This 
limitation  does  not  appear  in  the  pulpit  teaching  of  Chrysostom. 
In  one  of  his  homilies  it  is  declared  to  be  the  actual  body  of 
Christ.  “  This  body,”  he  says,  “  He  hath  given  us  both  to  hold 
and  to  eat.”1  John  of  Damascus  teaches  that  as  Christ  once 
assumed  the  body  which  was  born  of  the  Virgin,  so  now  in  the 
sacrament  He  assumes  the  bread  and  the  wine.  The  body  which 
He  had  on  earth  is  now  in  Heaven,  yet  for  this  body  and  the 
Eucharistic  body  there  is  but  one  and  the  same  hypostasis  or  sub¬ 
ject.  Yet  these  Fathers,  the  “  Realists,”  do  not  teach  the  later 
Roman  doctrine  of  transubstantiation.  They  —  for  example,  Cyril 
of  Alexandria  and  Chrysostom  —  use  the  same  terms  to  express 
the  change  in  the  baptismal  water  which  they  employ  respecting 
the  bread  and  wine  of  the  sacrament.  They  held  to  no  literal 
transubstantiation  of  the  water.  Gregory  of  Nyssa  and  others, 
holding  against  the  Monophysites  that  the  two  natures  in  Christ 
are  unmixed  and  unchanged,  appeal  to  the  analogy  afforded  by 
the  union  of  the  Logos  with  the  bread  and  wine. 

By  Gregory  of  Nyssa,  the  union  of  Christ  with  the  elements 
in  the  Lord’s  Supper  is  presented  as  a  carrying  forward,  a  con¬ 
tinuance,  so  to  speak,  of  the  Incarnation.  This  conception  is  a 
vital  peculiarity  in  the  doctrine  of  the  Fathers  who  follow  him. 
As  to  the  effects  of  the  Lord’s  Supper  upon  the  communicant, 

1  Ho?nily  in  Ep.  /.  ad  Cor.  2. 


170 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


they  are  variously  described.  The  new  life  that  begins  in  bap¬ 
tism  is  nourished  and  sustained.  But  Gregory  of  Nyssa,  Chrys¬ 
ostom  and  Cyril  of  Alexandria,  among  others,  attribute  to  the 
consecrated  bread  and  wine  a  mysterious,  physical  effect,  the 
result  of  which  is  the  formation  of  an  immortal  body  like  that 
of  the  risen  and  glorified  Christ.  They  compare  the  body  of 
Christ  received  in  the  sacrament  to  a  leaven  which  enters  into 
our  mortal  bodies  and  transforms  them.  Both  body  and  soul  are 
saved  from  perishing  and  endued  with  immortal  life. 

In  the  East,  from  the  beginning  of  the  fourth  century  the  opinion 
of  Origen  that  the  souls  of  the  good  are  not  detained  in  Hades 
until  the  resurrection  prevailed.  But  their  joy  was  thought  to  be 
a  foretaste  of  the  perfect  bliss  of  the  heavenly  state.  Hades  thus 
remained  only  as  a  place  of  Suffering.  The  influence  of  Origen 
and  his  school  availed  to  banish  chiliasm.  So,  for  a  time,  his 
more  spiritual  idea  of  the  resurrection  was  accepted  in  the  East ; 
but  with  the  growth  of  the  opposition  to  him  as  a  teacher,  in  the 
course  of  the  fourth  century,  his  opinion  on  this  subject  began  to 
be  more  and  more  rejected,  and  at  length  came  to  be  considered 
heretical.  The  same  fate  befell  his  doctrine  of  universal  resto¬ 
ration,  which  was  adopted  by  Gregory  of  Nyssa,  who  presents 
various  arguments  in  support  of  it ;  also,  by  the  Antiochian  theo¬ 
logians,  Diodorus  and  Theodore  of  Mopsuestia.  It  was  favored 
by  Gregory  of  Nazianzum,  although  not  in  his  public  teaching. 
Chrysostom,  commenting  on  i  Cor.  xv.  28,  remarks  that  “some’* 
infer  from  it  the  universal  abolition  of  sin  and  iniquity,  but  he 
himself  expresses  here  no  opinion  on  the  subject.1 

The  controversies  pertaining  to  the  orthodoxy  of  Origen  fill  a 
large  space  in  the  polemics  of  this  era.2  In  the  period  immedi¬ 
ately  following  his  death  his  influence  in  Alexandria  continued 
to  be  predominant.  Methodius,  Bishop  of  Patara,  was  the  first 
of  the  noted  assailants  of  his  theology.  Origen  did  not  lack 
devoted  champions.  About  306,  Pamphilus  and  Eusebius  of 
Caesarea  published  a  copious  defence  of  his  teaching.  Some  time 
after  the  beginning  of  the  Arian  controversy  the  attack  was  re¬ 
newed  upon  him  by  prominent  adversaries  of  Arius.  Athanasius, 
while  professing  to  differ  from  Origen  on  important  points,  vindi- 

1  Horn.  XXXIX.  11. 

2  For  a  lucid  narrative  of  them  in  detail,  see  Mr.  A.  W.  W.  Dale’s  art., 
Diet,  of  Christ.  Biogr.  Vol.  IV.  p.  142  sq. 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


171 

cated  his  orthodoxy  on  the  subject  of  the  Trinity  and  spoke  of 
him  with  reverence  and  admiration.  Basil  and  Gregory  of  Nazi- 
anzum  shared  in  these  feelings  and  published  the  Philocalia , 
selections  from  his  writings.  With  them  stood  Gregory  of  Nyssa, 
and  Didymus,  the  teacher  of  Jerome.  Jerome,  who  had  lauded 
Origen  and  translated  some  of  his  treatises,  was  won  over  to  the 
ranks  of  His  denouncers,  at  the  head  of  whom  was  Epiphanius. 
He  had  been  anticipated  in  his  crusade  by  Pachomius,  the  founder 
of  Egyptian  monasticism.  After  394,  Jerome  joined  hands  with 
the  enemies  of  the  great  Alexandrian  Teacher.  His  course  in¬ 
volved  a  rupture  of  friendship  with  Rufinus,  the  disciple  and  trans¬ 
lator  of  Origen.  Passing  over  intermediate  events,  we  have  to 
notice  briefly  the  last  stage  in  this  protracted  conflict.  After  a 
long  interval  of  comparative  quiet,  the  crusade  was  renewed  under 
the  auspices  of  Justinian,  in  whose  Epistle  to  Mennas,  the  primate 
of  Constantinople,  there  is  an  enumeration  of  Origen’s  alleged 
heresies.  Whether  he  was  anathematized  by  name  by  the  Fifth 
General  Council,  in  553,  is  a  question  which  cannot  be  confidently 
decided.  Hefele  judges  that  the  evidence  is  not  sufficient  to 
warrant  us  in  expunging  his  name  from  the  list  of  heretics  given 
in  the  nth  Canon. 

The  conversion  of  Constantine,  if  it  brought  peace  to  the  Church, 
was  followed  by  a  weakening  of  that  antagonism  to  heathen  rites 
and  customs  which  had  prevailed  during  the  centuries  of  perse¬ 
cution.  In  the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries  a  multitude  of  heathen 
professed  Christianity,  and  brought  within  its  pale  habits  of  thought 
imbibed  from  polytheism,  and  cravings  which  demanded  a  surro¬ 
gate  for  the  heathen  cults  which  they  had  given  up.  These  tem¬ 
pers  of  mind,  natural  to  the  uneducated  mass  of  converts,  must 
be  regarded  as  the  main  source  of  manifold  practices  which 
Protestants  generally  unite  in  pronouncing  superstitious.  Thus 
there  arose  a  degenerate  Christianity,  a  partially  debased  type 
of  religion,  —  what  has  been  called  a  Christianity  of  the  “  second 
rank  ”  or  grade.  All  along  we  meet  with  a  resistance  on  the 
part  of  enlightened  teachers  to  the  encroachments  of  this  pagan¬ 
ized  Christianity.  This  protest,  however,  is  often  mixed  with 
concessions  which  go  far  to  deprive  it  of  its  effect,  and  more  and 
more  gives  way  to  what  seems  to  be  an  irresistible  tide.  The 
Council  of  Elvira  in  Spain  (306),  in  its  36th  Canon,  forbids  pictures 
in  churches,  lest  the  objects  of  worship  and  adoration  should  be 


172 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


depicted  on  their  walls.  Eusebius  of  Caesarea  declares  all  por¬ 
traitures  of  Christ  to  be  offensive  to  the  Christian  conscience. 
Epiphanius  tore  apart  the  curtain  of  a  church  in  Palestine  which 
had  on  it  the  embroidered  picture  of  a  saint.  But  as  time  went 
on,  in  defiance  of  earlier  restrictions,  now  become  obsolete,  the 
costly  churches  that  were  erected  were  furnished  with  mural  paint¬ 
ings.  Amulets  were  prized,  and  supposed  fragments  of  the  true 
cross  were  peculiarly  precious.  Homage  was  paid  to  martyrs, 
supplications  were  addressed  to  them,  their  intercessions  were 
sought.  More  and  more  their  bones,  even  their  wearing  apparel 
and  everything  that  was  associated  with  their  persons  when  living, 
shared  in  this  religious  reverence.  It  was  not  long  before  saints, 
persons  of  distinguished  sanctity,  were  raised  nearly  or  quite  to 
the  level  of  the  martyrs.  Especially  the  worship  of  Mary,  whose 
perpetual  virginity  came  to  be  generally  accepted, —  although  it 
had  not  been  held  by  so  eminent  a  teacher  as  Basil, —  was  carried 
to  a  great  height,  in  particular  after  the  beginning  of  the  Nestorian 
controversy.  The  office  of  angels  was  magnified  in  a  proportional 
degree.  They  were  recipients  of  religious  honors,  as  the  guar¬ 
dians  of  towns  and  cities,  as  well  as  of  nations,  the  protectors 
against  danger  and  calamity.  The  individual  had  his  guardian 
angel,  replacing  the  genius  of  the  old  religion.  Thus  there  arose 
a  Christian  Pantheon.  When  Vigilantius,  a  Presbyter  from  the 
West,  came  out  in  opposition  to  the  worship  of  martyrs  and  their 
relics,  he  was  denounced  by  Jerome.  Monasticism,  with  its  holy 
class,  whose  function  it  was  to  live  according  to  a  sublimated  ideal 
of  morality,  might  easily  lead  Christians  generally  to  content  them¬ 
selves  with  a  standard  in  an  equal  degree  too  low.  On  this  subject, 
also,  Jerome  was  equally  zealous  in  combating  Vigilantius,  and 
Augustine  contended  against  Jovinian.  As  concerns  the  worship 
accorded  to  saints  and  angels,  the  theologians  distinguished  — 
whatever  confusion  might  exist  in  the  popular  mind  —  between 
the  qualified  homage  offered  to  created  beings  and  the  worship 
of  God.  As  to  the  use  of  pictures  in  worship,  it  was  sometimes 
said  that  the  prohibition  of  the  decalogue  had  reference  to  sym¬ 
bolical  representations  of  heathen  divinities.  Their  advantage  as 
giving  pictorial  lessons  to  the  ignorant  was  also  dwelt  upon.  It 
deserves  to  be  remembered  that  in  the  Sacrament  the  sole  refer¬ 
ence  of  the  offering  was  to  God. 

The  influence  of  the  example  of  the  heathen  mysteries,  of  the 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY j 

symbolism  that  characterized  them,  and  of  their  supposed  effect  on 
the  initiated,  insensibly  affected  Christian  ideas  and  spread  itself 
over  the  Christian  cultus.  In  the  rites  or  worship  it  was  increas¬ 
ingly  the  aim  to  realize  through  sensuous  representations  divine 
realities,  and  to  gain  a  foretaste  of  heavenly  good.  Hence  a 
sacredness  was  attached  to  every  feature  of  the  ritual.  The  entire 
cultus  was  enveloped  in  an  atmosphere  of  mysticism.  In  the  East, 
in  the  domain  of  Greek  Christianity,  there  was  thus  established  a 
punctilious  ritualism  like  that  of  the  Romans  under  the  heathen 
system.  This  all- pervading,  sacred  symbolism  linked  itself  to  the 
doctrine  of  the  Incarnation,  the  manifestation  of  God  in  visible 
humanity.  The  consequence  in  the  Greek  world  was  a  petrifac¬ 
tion  both  in  doctrine  and  the  ceremonies  of  worship.  Not  a 
syllable  in  the  creed  could  be  changed,  not  a  rite  could  be 
touched. 

The  mystagogy  which  had  entered  into  the  life  of  the  Church 
in  the  East  appeared  full  blown,  in  the  closing  part  of  the  fifth 
century,  in  the  Writings  of  Pseudo-Dionysius.  They  are,  as 
regards  the  conception  of  God  and  the  conception  of  religion  as 
the  union  of  the  soul  to  God,  permeated  with  a  New  Platonic 
mysticism,  which  thus  gained  a  long-continued  influence,  reach¬ 
ing  to  the  mediaeval  schoolmen.  God  is  transcendent.  He  is 
exalted  above  the  positive  qualities  ascribed  to  Him  in  the  “  cata- 
phatic  ”  theology  and  the  denials  of  them  in  the  negatives  of  the 
“  apophatic.”  All  that  is  is  good  ;  evil  is  negative,  the  absence  of 
the  good.  Communion  with  God  is  not  through  reflection,  not 
through  a  process  of  the  intellect,  but  by  illumination  and  purifica¬ 
tion.  This  is  by  means  of  the  heavenly  hierarchy,  consisting,  after 
God,  of  the  three  generic  ranks  of  angels,  to  which  correspond 
the  three  orders  of  the  hierarchy  on  earth.  The  transition  from 
the  hierarchy  above  to  the  hierarchy  below  is  through  the  Incarna¬ 
tion.  The  whole  ceremonial  of  the  Church  is  symbolical.  It  is 
by  this  complexity  of  symbols,  as  upon  ladders,  that  the  soul 
climbs  to  a  direct  union  with  God.  The  system  of  Dionysius  had 
a  zealous  disciple  and  advocate  in  Maximus,  the  Confessor,  who 
mingled,  however,  with  its  mysticism  an  ethical  element  in  the 
conception  of  the  freedom  of  the  will. 

The  strong  hold  which  heathenism  in  its  Christian  guise  had 
gained  is  shown  by  the  ineffectual  struggles  of  the  Iconoclasts  in 
the  Greek  Empire.  The  first  great  leader  in  the  attack  on  the 


174 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


use  of  images  in  worship  was  the  rough  soldier,  but  vigorous 
ruler,  the  Emperor  Leo  the  Isaurian  (716-741).  He  was  partly 
stimulated  to  his  onset  on  what  he  considered  paganism  in  the 
Church  by  the  abhorrence  of  it  felt  by  the  Mohammedans. 
Having  put  down  a  revolt  in  the  Cyclades,  caused  by  his  repres¬ 
sive  measures,  he  commanded  all  portable  images  to  be  taken 
out  of  the  churches  and  ordered  the  frescoes  that  could  not  be  re¬ 
moved  to  be  painted  over.  The  Roman  Bishops,  Gregory  I.  and 
Gregory  II.,  took  sides  with  his  opponents.  John  of  Damascus, 
who,  living  in  a  cloister  near  Jerusalem,  was  safe  under  the  pro¬ 
tection  of  the  Caliph,  defended  the  obnoxious  practice,  seeking  a 
justification  for  it  in  the  analogon  of  the  Incarnation.  .  The  son  of 
Leo,  Constantine  Croponymos,  pursued  the  same  course  as  his 
father.  A  fierce  contest  arose  everywhere  between  the  Icono¬ 
clasts,  both  clergy  and  laity,  who  undertook  to  carry  out  the  imperial 
decrees,  and  the  people,  especially  the  monks,  who  resisted  them. 
It  was  not  until  the  accession  of  Irene  (780)  that  the  image- 
worshippers  began  to  acquire  the  ascendency.  Their  triumph 
was  secured  at  the  (second)  Council  of  Nicaea  in  787,  which 
commanded  the  restoration  of  the  images  to  the  places  from 
which  they  had  been  dislodged.  The  Council  set  up  a  distinction 
between  the  religious  Veneration1  —  which  included  lights  and 
the  burning  of  incense  —  to  be  offered  to  images,  and  the  adora¬ 
tion,2  in  the  strict  sense,  which  was  due  to  God  alone.  Once 
more,  for  a  time,  the  Iconoclasts  got  the  upper  hand  under  Leo  V., 
the  Armenian,  who  had  the  army  at  his  back,  which  ascribed  the 
disasters  of  the  Empire  to  image -worship  ;  but  in  842  the  Icono- 
dulists  celebrated  their  final  victory.  In  this  conflict,  which  had 
raged,  with  intervals  of  cessation,  for  upwards  of  a  century,  the 
party  of  Iconoclasts  was  actuated  by  mixed  motives,  in  which 
civil  policy,  political  subserviency,  and  religious  indifferentism  had 
a  large  share,  while  their  opponents,  however  superstitious,  waged 
the  contest  with  deep  sincerity.  Its  issue  secured  to  the  heathen 
elements  which  had  become  incorporated  in  the  Christianity  of  the 
East  an  immovable  place. 

John  of  Damascus,  the  final  expositor  of  the  Greek  theology  in 
the  ancient  period,  was  much  influenced  by  Aristotle,  and  in  the 
turn  of  his  mind  was  a  scholastic  theologian,  in  the  technical  sense. 
On  the  Trinity  and  the  Person  of  Christ  he  follows  in  the  path 

1  acnracr/xds  ;  t ip.TjTi.K7]  TrpoaKivrjcns. 


2  Act rpela. 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY  ^ 

opened  by  Leontius  and  Maximus  the  Confessor.  In  Anthropol¬ 
ogy,  he  is  a  dichotomist.  He  distinguishes  between  the  “  image  ” 
and  the  “  similitude  ”  of  God  in  man.  In  Eschatology,  he  ignores 
the  speculations  of  Origen,  and  is  orthodox.  On  the  Atonement, 
he  holds  that  the  death  of  Christ  is  a  sacrifice  offered  to  God  and 
not  a  price  to  Satan.  The  “  mysteries,”  the  entire  ritual,  are  made 
an  integral  part  of  the  orthodox  system.  The  worship  of  images 
is  defended  on  the  ground  of  unwritten  tradition. 


CHAPTER  VI 


THE  THEOLOGICAL  SYSTEM  OF  AUGUSTINE  —  THE  PELAGIAN 

CONTROVERSY 

Augustine  is  the  most  influential  of  all  the  teachers  of  the 
Church  since  the  Apostolic  age.  Preeminent  in  the  West,  as 
Origen  was  among  the  theologians  of  the  East,  his  sway  was  not 
like  that  of  Origen,  disputed  and  broken.  It  was  of  far  longer 
continuance.  This  unrivalled  influence  grew  out  of  the  depth  and 
variety  of  his  powers,  and  the  sincerity,  energy,  and  fervor  of 
his  religious  character.  In  him  the  dialectical  and  mystical  ele¬ 
ments  coalesced.  He  was  at  once  a  philosopher  and  a  saint.  At 
the  same  time  he  was  a  man  of  letters  and  an  orator.  His  Con¬ 
fessions  are  an  outpouring  of  his  heart  in  the  form  of  a  converse 
of  his  soul  with  God.  Yet  among  devotional  expressions  full  of 
ardor  we  find  him  interweaving  distinctions  respecting  the  divine 
attributes.  The  subtilty  of  his  genius  and  his  dialectical  turn, 
together  with  his  doctrine  respecting  faith  and  knowledge,  not  to 
speak  now  of  other  parts  of  his  teaching,  made  him  the  founder 
of  the  mediaeval  theology.  However  it  might  swerve  from  his 
opinions,  there  was  no  explicit  revolt  against  them.  Through 
the  Middle  Ages,  his  word  was  counted  to  be  law.  His  ideas 
respecting  the  Church  and  its  institutions  were  embodied  in  the 
Roman  Catholic  system  of  hierarchical  rule  and  sacramental 
grace.  His  teaching  on  another  side,  and  the  type  of  his  relig¬ 
ious  experience,  were  a  great  source  and  warrant  of  the  Protestant 
Reformation.  Luther  had  learned,  as  he  says,  more  from  him 
than  from  any  other  non-biblical  author.  Calvin  quotes  him,  as 
he  says,  “  more  frequently  than  any  other  as  the  best  and  most 
faithful  Writer  of  Antiquity.”1  The  variety  in  the  effects  thus 
traceable  to  Augustine,  while  it  indicates  the  presence  in  his 

1  Institut.  IV.  xiv.  26. 

176 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


177 


teaching  of  unreconciled  elements,  testifies  also  to  the  wealth  of 
its  contents.  Were  there  space  here  to  review  the  course  of  his 
mental  and  religious  life,  we  should  dwell  on  his  early  training, 
which  included  whatever  belonged  to  the  liberal  education  of  the 
time,  a  training  which  made  him  conversant  with  the  Latin  poets 
as  well  as  other  Latin  authors,  although  his  knowledge  of  Greek, 
owing,  as  he  confesses,  to  his  own  negligence,  was  always  imper¬ 
fect  ;  to  his  awakening,  after  giving  way  to  sensual  temptation,  to 
higher  thoughts  and  aspirations,  through  a  passage  in  the  Hor- 
tensius  of  Cicero ;  to  his  long  novitiate  in  connection  with  the 
Manichaeans,  from  whom  he  vainly  hoped  for  a  solution  of  the 
perplexities  that  distressed  his  mind,  an  appeasing  of  his  thirst  for 
knowledge ;  the  interval  of  skepticism  and  despondency  that 
ensued;  the  refreshing  and  stimulating  influence  of  New  Plato¬ 
nism  which  impressed  on  him  the  reality  of  spiritual  things,  and 
opened  his  spirit  to  Christian  influences ;  his  conversion  through 
the  influence  of  the  study  of  the  writings  of  the  Apostle  Paul 
and  the  sermons  of  Ambrose.  He  appreciated  at  once  the  value 
and  the  insufficiency  of  the  “  Platonic  books.”  Acquainting  himself 
with  them  before  he  entered  into  the  meaning  of  the  Scriptures, 
he  could  distinguish  between  “  those  who  saw  whither  they  were 
to  go,  yet  saw  not  the  way,  a  way  that  leadeth  not  merely  to 
behold  the  beatific  country,  but  to  dwell  in  it.”  1  Augustine  had 
studied  in  his  youth  the  dialectics  of  Aristotle ;  but  his  philosophy 
continued  to  be  that  of  the  New  Platonists.  Two  fundamental 
factors  concurred  in  giving  to  his  interpretation  of  Christianity  its 
distinctive  form.  The  first  was  the  writings  of  the  Apostle  Paul, 
or  the  Pauline  teaching  realized  in  his  own  inward  experience. 
The  second  was  the  existing  ecclesiastical  system,  —  the  Catholic 
Church,  its  authority,  its  traditions,  its  sacraments.  According 
to  the  view  of  Protestant  Christians,  the  second  factor  partially 
neutralized  the  proper  action  of  the  first.  Thus  there  were 
mingled  in  his  intellectual  life  the  seeds  of  two  discordant 
systems. 

In  Augustine’s  theology,  faith  precedes  knowledge  and  is  the 
key  to  knowledge.  The  first  truth  is  that  of  the  soul’s  own  exist¬ 
ence,  which,  like  Descartes,  Augustine  holds  to  be  involved  in 
‘every  conscious  thought,  even  in  every  conscious  doubt.  Besides 
our  sensations  and  our  knowledge  of  our  sensations,  there  is  reason 

1  Conf.  B.  VIII.  xx.  26. 

N 


i;3 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


which  seeks  after  knowledge,  and  judges  either  correctly  or  erro¬ 
neously.  In  these  activities  of  reason  we  postulate  a  norm  of 
judgment,  a  truth  higher  than  ourselves,  which  is  unchangeable. 
This  unchangeable  truth  is  a  reality  ;  it  is  God.  To  know  ourselves 
as  real  is  to  know  God  as  real.  In  God,  or  the  Wisdom  of  God, 
are  the  rational  grounds  of  all  things.  Thus  in  faith,  the  free 
acknowledgment  of  self  and  of  God,  all  knowledge  is  founded. 
That  material  things  exist  is  only  an  object  of  faith.  It  is  only 
another  recognition  of  the  principle  of  authority  when  we  accept 
the  Scriptures  and  the  traditions  of  the  Church.  Here  faith  as¬ 
sumes  an  ethical  and  religious  character.  But  thought  and  inquiry 
are  legitimate,  for  we  are  destined  for  knowledge,  and  “  knowledge 
is  the  reward  of  faith.” 1  The  connecting  link  between  God  and 
the  World  is  the  Logos,  in  whom,  as  the  Wisdom  of  God,  are  the 
invisible  grounds  of  all  things  created.  But  creation  is  the  free 
act  of  God,  not  the  moulding  of  any  previously  existing  materials. 
As  concerns  the  attributes  of  God,  they  are  relative  to  our  appre¬ 
hension.  “  He  is  good  without  quality,  great  without  quantity,” 
etc.  He  is  even  super-substantial,  and  it  is  more  proper  to  speak 
of  His  ‘  essence  ’  than  of  His  ‘  substance.’  In  Him  substance  and 
attribute,  like  the  attributes  themselves,  are  indistinguishable. 
Here  our  best  science  is  nescience.  Respecting  the  Trinity, 
Augustine  insists  on  the  divine  unity.  His  mode  of  presenting 
this  doctrine  is  in  contrast  with  that  of  Gregory  of  Nyssa  and  the 
later  Nicmans,  and  is  akin  to  that  adopted  by  Athanasius.  The 
distinction  of  persons  is  limited  to  their  relation  to  one  another. 
There  is  but  one  substance  or  essence,  and  when  we  speak  of 
“  three  persons,”  it  is  only  because  we  lack  words  to  express  the 
distinction  between  the  Father  and  the  Son,  and  between  the 
Holy  Ghost  and  the  Father  and  the  Son.  “  Certainly  there  are 
Three  .  .  .  Yet  when  it  is  asked,  what  Three,  human  language 
labors  from  great  poverty  of  speech.  We  say  ‘  three  persons,’ 
not  that  it  may  be  so  said,  but  that  we  may  not  keep  silence.”2 
We  say  of  each  person  that  He  is  omnipotent,  “  but  there  are  not 
three  omnipotents.3  The  expressions  of  Augustine  evidently  were 
at  the  basis  of  the  so-called  Afythanasian  Creed.  In  the  concep¬ 
tion  of  the  person  of  Christ,  his  humanity  comes  to  its  rights  more 
nearly  than  is  true  of  the  Eastern  champions  of  orthodoxy.  The 


1  Ev.  Johann.  Tract.  29,  §  6.  Letters,  120. 

2  De  Trin.  V.  c.  9.  3  Ibid.  c.  8. 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


179 

voluntary  humiliation  of  Christ  in  becoming  incarnate  is  an  aspect 
of  the  doctrine  on  which  Augustine  delights  to  dwell. 

When  we  seek  to  determine  where  Augustine  placed  the  seat  of 
authority,  we  meet  with  statements  not  easily  reconcilable.  He  is 
most  deeply  impressed  with  the  evidences  of  divine  inspiration  in 
the  Scriptures.  “  To  the  canonical  Scriptures  alone  I  owe  agree¬ 
ment  without  any  dissent.”1  Yet  we  find  also  numerous  state- 
ments  of  the  same  general  tenor  as  the  following  :  “  I  should  not 
believe  the  Gospel,  did  not  the  authority  of  the  Catholic  Church 
move  me  thereto.”2  Moreover,  he  professes  his  faith  in  many 
things  which  are  not  found  in  the  Scriptures,  but  only  in  the 
traditions  accepted  by  the  Church.  On  questions  pertaining  to 
the  Canon  itself  the  decisions  of  the  Church  are  with  him  de¬ 
cisive.  At  least  a  partial  explanation  of  this  inconsistency  is  sug¬ 
gested  when  we  look  at  the  circumstance  of  his  conversion.  When, 
in  listening  to  the  preaching  of  Ambrose,  his  heart  began  to  be 
deeply  stirred,  he  was  surprised  by  the  disclosure  to  his  soul  of 
truth  in  the  Scriptures  which  was  far  more  profound  than  his 
superficial  interpretations  had  before  discovered  to  him.  It  was 
under  the  auspices  of  the  Church,  from  the  lips  of  its  authorized 
and  anointed  teachers,  that  he  was  thus  lifted  up  to  a  new  dis¬ 
cernment  and  appropriation  of  Biblical  teaching.  Apart  from 
this  special  influence,  and  along  with  it,  the  impression  made  by 
the  Church,  spread  as  it  was  over  the  world,  and  stretching  back 
to  the  days  of  the  Apostles,  with  its  martyrs  and  saints,  its  miracles, 
its  intrepid  condemnation  of  the  world,  its  extending  conquests, 
was  such  as  to  excite  belief  in  its  claims  to  authority.  In  the 
prosecution  of  the  contest  with  the  Donatists,  Augustine  was  led 
to  develop  and  define  his  conception  of  the  Church.  The  notes 
of  the  Church  are  unity,  holiness,  catholicity,  and  apostolicity. 
The  Church  is  the  organization  which  is  connected  by  the 
Apostolic  Sees,  among  which  Rome  is  preeminent,  with  the 
Apostles.  Ecclesiastical  discipline  is  a  duty,  but  ideal  perfection 
is  not  possible  here  on  earth.  The  tares  must  be  left  to  grow 
with  the  wheat.  Not  all  who  are  within  the  fold  of  the  Church 
are  heirs  of  salvation.  On  the  great  disputed  questions  of  the 
validity  of  baptism  by  heretics,  and  of  ordination  by  traditors,  he 
maintained  the  affirmative,  with  the  qualification  that  rites  thus 
performed  require,  not  to  be  repeated,  but  to  be  supplemented 

1  Nat.  et  Grat.  61.  2  Cont.  Epist.  Manich.  5. 


i8o 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


by  the  public  admission  of  the  recipients  into  the  Church  Catholic. 
This  position  was  conformed  to  the  ordinances  of  the  Synod  of 
Arles  in  314.  The  proposition,  which  had  been  previously  vindi¬ 
cated  by  Optatus  of  Milevis,  that  the  sacraments  are  to  this  extent 
valid,  independently  of  the  personal  character  of  the  administrators, 
was  established.  Augustine  connected  his  view  with  the  general 
ground  that  while  love,  the  essential  of  salvation,  is  a  grace  to  be 
acquired  only  within  the  Church,  faith  and  hope,  its  proper,  but 
not  necessary,  precursors,  are  possible  without  its  pale. 

At  this  point,  it  is  convenient  to  call  attention  to  Augustine’s 
doctrine  concerning  the  relation  of  faith  to  personal  salvation. 
The  student  of  Augustine  will  subscribe  to  the  remark  of  Harnack, 
that  “  whoever  looks  away  from  the  formulas  to  the  spirit  will 
find  everywhere  in  the  Writings  of  Augustine  a  stream  of  Pauline 
faith.”1  Yet  in  his  dogmatic  expositions,  the  Pauline  conception 
is  modified  in  such  a  way  that  the  organic  relation  of  faith  to 
works,  or  its  necessary  relation,  does  not  appear.  The  faith  that 
justifies  is  faith  to  which  love  is  united.  The  solution  which  he 
offers  of  the  seeming  contradiction  of  Paul  and  James  is  this  : 
their  common  doctrine  is  that  faith  is  the  first  in  order,  but  James 
is  interested  to  emphasize  the  point  that  it  does  not  avail  unless 
it  is  followed  by  works.2  Augustine  retains  the  doctrine  of  merits, 
as  taught  by  his  predecessors,  only  he  magnifies  grace  by  pro¬ 
nouncing  all  our  merits  to  be  God’s  gifts.3  Since  it  is  held  that 
baptism  effaces  guilt  for  the  past,  and  from  the  general  turn  of 
Augustine’s  teaching,  it  would  appear,  that  although  his  sense 
of  the  guilt  of  sin  is  keen,  it  is  less  intense  than  his  sense  of  the 
tyranny  of  sin  and  of  the  corruption  entailed  by  it. 

Augustine  reproduces  the  theory  of  a  relation  of  the  death  of 
Christ  to  Satan.  Satan’s  dominion,  after  man’s  surrender,  existed 
of  right ;  but  by  inflicting  death  on  one  who  was  sinless,  he  justly 
forfeited  that  dominion.  Augustine,  however,  does  not  confine 
himself  to  this  view  of  the  Atonement.  The  righteousness  of  God 
is  the  motive  of  the  infliction  of  punishment.  There  was  a  double 
ground  for  the  Incarnation  of  Christ,  first  that  by  suffering  all 
things  in  behalf  of  us  He  might  deliver  us  from  the  bonds  of  sin, 
and  secondly,  that  He  might  set  us  free  from  its  power.4  “  He 
took  on  himself,  being  without  guilt,  our  punishment,  that  he 

1  DG.  III.  71.  2  De  Fide  et  Oper.  14. 

4  De  Vera  Relig.  I.  16.  See  Baur,  DG.  I.  (2),  382. 


3  Conf.  IX.  34. 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


181 


might  put  away  our  guilt  and  put  an  end  to  our  punishment.” 1 
There  are  passages  of  like  import  in  Hilary  and  Ambrose.2 

The  symbolical  nature  of  Sacraments  is  very  frequently  set  forth 
by  Augustine.  Sacraments  are  said  to  be  “  visible  words.”  “  In 
a  sacrament,  one  thing  is  seen,  another  is  understood.”  A  sacra¬ 
ment  is  “  the  visible  form  of  an  invisible  grace.”  Yet  it  is  far 
from  his  conception  that  the  Sacraments  are  bare  symbols.  They 
are  the  concomitants,  and  in  a  sense  the  vehicles,  of  the  grace 
which  they  figure  to  the  senses.  The  water  of  baptism  shows 
outwardly  “  the  sacrament  of  grace  ”  ;  the  Spirit  working  inwardly 
“  the  benefit  of  grace.” 3  It  brings  the  forgiveness  of  sin  ;  it  weak¬ 
ens  its  power  within  us.  The  literal  interpretation  of  John  vi.  33 
is  repudiated.  The  passage  means  that  we  are  to  participate  in 
the  sufferings  of  our  Lord,  and  remember  meetly  and  to  our  profit 
His  death  for  us.4  We  are  not  to  confound  signs  with  the  thing 
signified.5  The  body  of  Christ  which  was  on  earth  is  now  in 
heaven.6  Yet  those  who  are  in  “  the  unity  of  Christ’s  body  ”  —  in 
the  Church  Catholic  —  “  are  truly  said  to  eat  the  body  and  drink 
the  blood  of  Christ.” 7  “  He  that  dwelleth  not  in  Christ,  and  in 

whom  Christ  dwelleth  not,  neither  eateth  his  flesh  nor  drinketh 
his  blood.8  But  the  Sacrament  is  a  sacrifice,  the  life  and  soul 
of  which  is  the  spiritual  self-devotion  of  its  recipients  to  God ; 
nevertheless  a  sacrifice  bringing  benefit  to  the  departed. 

An  essential  element  in  Augustine’s  theodicy  is  the  doctrine 
that  as  God’s  plan  is  universal,  His  purpose  and  His  will  are  com¬ 
pletely  carried  out.  The  goal  that  is  aimed  at  in  the  creation  is 
attained.  The  Being  who  has  not  left  “  even  the  entrails  of  the 
smallest  and  most  insignificant  animal,  or  the  feather  of  a  bird,  or 
the  little  flower  of  a  plant,  or  the  leaf  of  a  tree,  without  a  harmony, 
and,  as  it  were,  a  mutual  peace  among  all  its  parts,  —  that  God 
can  never  be  believed  to  have  left  the  kingdoms  of  men,  their 
dominations  and  servitudes,  outside  of  the  laws  of  his  Provi¬ 
dence.”9  Evil  exists,  but  evil,  even  moral  evil,  is  a  negation; 
it  is  the  absence,  or  the  privation,  of  good.  It  is  therefore  not 

1  C.  Faust.  Munich.  XIV.  1.  In  Sermo  137,  he  apostrophizes  Christ  — 
“  sustinens  poenam,  ut  et  culpam  solvas  et  poenam.” 

2  See  Thomasius,  DG.  I.  409,  410.  0  Ep.  205,  1. 

3  Ep.  98,  2.  7  De  Civ.  Dei ,  XXI.  25. 

4  De  Christ.  Doctr.  III.  16.  '  8  In  Johann.  Tract.  26,  18. 

5  Ibid.  9.  9  De  Civ.  Dei ,  V.  1 1. 


182 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


an  object  of  creation.  God  is  not  its  author.  Moreover,  God’s 
will  is  never  defeated.  The  will  of  the  creature  when  it  opposes 
the  will  of  the  Creator,  He  uses  to  carry  out  His  will.  He  turns 
evil  into  good.  He  accomplishes  some  of  his  purposes  through 
the  evil  desires  of  wicked  men.  When  evil  exists,  God  permits 
it  and  wills  to  permit  it.1  Augustine  does  not  shrink  from  the 
paradoxical  saying,  “  it  is  good  that  evil  exists.”  In  the  Civitas 
Dei ,  the  attempt  is  made  to  vindicate  God’s  character  in  the 
ordering  of  the  course  of  history.  The  author  was  led  to  write 
it  by  complaints  uttered  against  Christianity  by  the  heathen  after 
the  capture  of  Rome  by  the  Goths.  There  are  two  communities 
whose  origin  is  traced  back  six  thousand  years  to  the  beginnings 
of  the  race.  One  is  the  city  of  God,  the  other  is  the  city  of  the 
world.  .  .  .  The  former  begins  with  Abel ;  the  latter  with  Cain, 
of  whom  it  is  significantly  said  that  he  “  built  a  city.”  The  one 
is  composed  of  the  people  of  God,  led  forward  from  age  to  age, 
through  the  old  dispensation,  and  under  the  new,  and  destined  to 
attain  to  everlasting  blessedness.  The  other  is  composed  of  the 
wicked,  consisting  both  of  the  flagrantly  bad,  but,  also,  of  the 
virtuous  according  to  a  human  estimate,  such  as  patriots,  heroes 
and  sages,  who  are  nevertheless  without  love  to  God.  The  end  of 
the  members  of  the  civitas  mundi  is  eternal  misery.  During  the 
three  ages  of  mankind,  the  period  antecedent  to  Israel,  the  Old 
Testament  period,  and  the  Christian  —  which  are  also  subdivided 
so  as  to  made  six  in  all  —  useful  inventions,  arts,  and  sciences 
arise,  kingdoms  and  empires  are  built  up,  —  all  subserving  a 
divine  plan,  and  productive  of  much  good.  But  secular  society, 
the  institutions  of  human  government,  are  in  their  origin  tainted 
with  evil.  Their  necessity  and  their  use  are  conditioned  on  the 
introduction  and  spread  of  sin.  Under  this  pre-supposition,  hu¬ 
man  government,  the  government  of  the  Roman  Empire,  has  a 
rightful  existence,  and  is  ordained  of  God.  But  the  Church  is 
the  civitas  Dei ,  which  the  State  is  bound  to  protect  and  uphold, 
even  to  the  extent  of  exercising  coercion  against  heretics  and 
assailants  of  its  legitimate  authority.  The  end  of  the  world  is  a 
final  conflagration  which  is  followed  by  a  new  world,  the  abode  of 
the  righteous,  the  heirs  of  salvation. 

Augustine  adopts  a  literal  view  of  the  mode  of  the  resurrection, 
and  meets  objections  by  fanciful  hypotheses  relative  to  the  com- 

1  Enchiridion ,  c.  ioi. 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


183 

position  and  the  stature  of  the  bodies  of  the  redeemed.  He  holds 
fast  to  the  prevalent  doctrine  of  everlasting  punishment,  which  he 
tells  us  that  “  very  many  ”  disbelieve.1  It  may  be  that  the  pains  of 
the  condemned  are  at  certain  intervals  mitigated.  It  may  be  that 
“  some  believers  ”  pass  through  a  “  kind  of  purgatorial  fire  ”  after 
death.  “  It  is  a  matter  that  may  be  inquired  into  or  left  doubt¬ 
ful.”  3  But  Augustine  distinctly  avers  that  the  sacraments  and  alms 
of  the  faithful  on  earth  are  of  service  to  that  middle  class  who  are 
neither  too  good  to  need  such  a  benefit,  nor  too  bad  to  have  it 
granted  to  them.  It  accrues  to  none  save  those  who  on  earth 
have  earned  such  merit  that  such  services  can  help  them.3 

In  expounding  the  opinions  of  Augustine  on  Sin  and  Grace, 
the  most  distinctive  part  of  his  theology,  we  are  brought  to  the 
Pelagian  Controversy,  in  which  his  opinions  in  their  mature  form 
were  set  forth  and  defended.  Pelagius,  a  British  monk,  came  to 
Rome  about  the  beginning  of  the  fifth  century.  The  ablest  sup¬ 
porters  of  his  teaching  were  Coelestius,  who  had  been  a  Roman 
lawyer,  but  became  a  monk,  and  later,  Julian,  Bishop  of  Eclanum, 
a  man  of  striking  ability  and  an  acute  polemic.  The  external 
events  of  the  controversy,  which  involved  a  crisis  of  importance 
parallel  with  that  produced  by  the  Arian  Controversy  in  the  East, 
will  be  touched  upon  hereafter.  There  were  really  two  systems  at 
war  with  one  another.  Their  main  points  can  be  here  best  exhib¬ 
ited  by  placing  them  in  contrast,  without  reference  to  the  chrono¬ 
logical  course  of  the  discussion. 

Pelagius  was  a  monk,  strict  if  not  austere  in  his  morality.  Augus¬ 
tine  himself  testifies  to  the  high  esteem  in  which  he  was  held  for 
the  purity  of  his  life.4  He  had  passed  through  no  arduous  inward 
struggle  with  propensities  to  evil,  approached  the  subjects  of  de¬ 
bate  from  an  ethical  point  of  view.  Human  responsibility  and 
its  necessary  conditions  were  the  matter  uppermost  in  his  thoughts. 
Before  the  contest  began,  he  had  found  fault  with  Augustine’s 
sentence  in  the  Confessions :  “Give  what  Thou  commandest,  and 
command  what  Thou  wilt.”  His  habits  of  mind,  in  connection 
with  his  personal  experience,  naturally  led  him  to  extreme  views 
concerning  obedience  as  a  constitutive  element  in  religion  and 
human  power  as  commensurate  with  obligation.  A  rationalistic 

1  Enchirid.  112.  2  Ibid.  c.  66.  3  Ibid.  no. 

4  Ep.  186,  ad  Paul.  De  Pecc.  Merit.  III.  I,  3.  See  Wiggers,  Augustinism 
and  Pelagianism,  p.  42  sq. 


184 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


tendency  in  the  interpretation  of  the  Gospel,  a  certain  “  moralism,” 
were  the  natural  accompaniments  of  this  tendency.  Augustine,  on 
the  other  hand,  was  most  deeply  impressed  with  the  fact  of  man’s 
dependence.  With  him,  human  sin  and  human  need  were  the 
realities  apart  from  which  the  salvation  through  the  Gospel  had  no 
meaning,  or  was  emptied  of  its  essential  character.  His  point  of 
view  was  predominantly  religious.  In  the  first  place,  the  world 
itself,  instead  of  being  launched  into  being  and  left  to  a  self-devel¬ 
opment,  is  forever  dependent  on  God’s  co-working  energy.  In 
the  second  place,  man  is  not  himself  the  author  of  goodness ;  he 
has  no  goodness  save  in  communion  with  God,  and  this  is  impossi¬ 
ble  —  impossible  for  unfallen  man  or  for  any  creature  —  without 
God’s  indwelling,  inspiring  grace.1  Pelagius’s  opinion  of  unfallen 
man  was  the  very  opposite.  He  is  qualified  for  right  or  for  wrong 
action  through  a  complete,  inherent  capacity.2  In  the  third  place, 
while  Pelagius  considered  the  freedom  of  the  will  to  be  the  power 
of  alternate  choice,  —  an  inalienable  power  of  contrary  choice,  — 
with  Augustine  freedom  in  the  true  sense  is  the  soul’s  actual  superi¬ 
ority  to  the  lower  propensities,  subjection  to  which  is  servitude. 
Freedom  thus  coalesces  with  necessity,  a  necessity,  however,  which 
is  not  constraint.3  In  the  case  of  God  and  of  perfected  saints,  it  is 
a  blessed  necessity.  Augustine  cannot  be  said  to  be  strictly  a 
determinist  in  his  theory  of  the  will ;  for,  in  the  first  place,  he  held 
to  a  power  of  contrary  choice  in  civil  or  worldly  concerns,  and 
secondly,  he  held  to  the  existence,  as  a  temporary  possession,  of  the 
same  power  in  Adam,  in  the  sphere  of  morals  and  religion.  It  was 
in  him  a  part  of  the  apparatus  of  personal  responsibility,4  but  was 
destined  to  merge  on  one  side  or  the  other,  in  a  state  of  the  will, 
permanent,  and  if  evil,  by  his  own  act  irrevocable.  But  practically, 
after  the  moral  decision  was  made,  determinism  comes  into  play. 

According  to  Augustine,  Adam,  through  the  grace  given  him, 
was  able  to  remain  upright,  in  communion  with  God.  By  his 
own  act,  the  reverse  of  which  was  possible  to  him,  he  brought  on 

1  “  His  free-will  would  not  have  sufficed  for  his  continuance  in  righteous¬ 
ness,  unless  God  had  assisted  it  by  imparting  a  portion  of  his  unchangeable 
goodness.”  Enchirid.  106. 

2  See,  e.g.,  Ep.  ad  Demetr.  c.  2,  3,  13,  14,  and,  in  Augustin.  De  Grat.  Christ. 
4,  De  Nat.  et  Grat.  47.  See,  also,  Julian  (in  August.  Op.  Imp.  VI.  9,  I.  91). 

3  See,  e.g.,  C.  Duas  Epp.  Pci.  I.  18. 

4  “  Man  in  Paradise  was  able  of  his  own  will,  simply  by  abandoning  right¬ 
eousness,  to  destroy  himself.”  Enchirid.  106. 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


185 


himself,  justly,  physical  death,  moral  guilt,  and  an  enslavement  of 
the  will  to  sin.  These  consequences,  likewise  justly,  appear  in  his 
descendants  from  their  birth.1 

Augustine’s  theory  rests  on  the  idea  that  human  nature  as  a 
whole  was  deposited  in  the  first  man.  This  nature,  as  it  came 
from  the  hands  of  God,  was  pure.  The  long  battle  which  he  had 
fought  with  Manichaean  philosophy,  both  in  his  own  soul  and  after 
his  conversion,  made  him  sedulous  to  avoid  their  peculiar  tenet. 
But  human  nature,  existing  in  its  totality  in  Adam,  was  corrupted 
in  the  first  act  of  transgression,  and  as  such  is  transmitted  to  his 
descendants.  The  instrument  of  this  transmission  is  the  sexual 
appetite.  This  appetite  is  itself  the  fruit  of  the  first  sin,  as  well 
as  the  means  whereby  the  sinful  nature  is  communicated  from 
father  to  son.  The  race  was  embodied  in  its  first  representative, 
and,  when  the  race  is  unfolded  or  developed,  the  qualities  which 
it  acquired  in  his  act,  which  was  both  generic  and  individual, 
appear  as  the  personal  possession  of  each  individual  at  birth. 
As  a  personal  act,  the  first  sin  was  not  our  act  but  the  act  of 
another ;  yet  it  was  truly  the  common  act  of  mankind  in  their 
collective  or  undistributed  form  of  existence.  For  the  con¬ 
sequences  of  this  act  all  are  therefore  responsible ;  and  as  soon 
as  they  exist  as  individuals,  they  exhibit  in  themselves  the  same 
corruption  of  nature,  —  the  same  inordinate  appetites  (con¬ 
cupiscence),  and  slavery  of  the  will  to  sin,  —  which  resulted  to 
Adam.  “This  theory  would  easily  blend  with  Augustine’s  specu¬ 
lative  form  of  thought,  as  he  had  appropriated  to  himself  the 
Platonico-Aristotelian  Realism  in  the  doctrine  of  general  con¬ 
ceptions,  and  conceived  of  general  conceptions  as  the  original 
types  of  the  kind  realized  in  individual  things.”  2  It  may  be 
remarked  here  that  Realism  either  in  the  extreme  Platonic  form 
or  in  the  more  moderate  Aristotelian  type,  prevailed  from 
Augustine  down  through  the  Middle  Ages,  being  embraced  by  the 
orthodox  schoolmen,  and  ruling  both  the  great  schools  during  the 
productive,  golden  era  of  scholastic  theology.  That  the  realistic 
mode  of  thought  extensively  influenced  Protestant  theology  at  the 
Reformation  and  afterwards,  admits  of  no  question.  But  since  it 
is  far  from  being  true  that  all  Augustinians  have  been  avowed, 
much  less,  self-consistent,  Realists,  it  is  better  when  we  speak  of 
them  as  a  class,  to  say  that  they  are  swayed  by  a  realistic  mode 

1  See,  e.g.,  De  Corrept.  et  Grai.  10. 


2  Neander,  Ch.  History ,  II.  609. 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


1 86 

of  thought  than  that  they  are  the  advocates  of  an  explicit  Realism. 
It  should  be  added  that  Realism,  as  far  as  it  affected  Augustine, 
was  rather  a  prop  than  a  source  of  his  doctrine.  The  fact  of 
innate  sin  was  so  deeply  lodged  in  his  convictions  that  he  was  not 
averse  to  any  plausible  support  or  defense  of  it  that  lay  within  his 
reach. 

In  relation  to  the  doctrine  of  a  generic  sin  in  Adam,  we  observe 
that  after  he  became  established  in  this  opinion,  and  through  all  of 
his  numerous  treatises  relating  to  the  Pelagian  Controversy,  there 
is  a  great  uniformity  in  his  expressions.  The  same  set  of  proposi¬ 
tions  and  arguments  appears  and  reappears.  In  that  great  sin  of 
the  first  man  our  nature  was  deteriorated,  and  not  only  became 
sinful,  but  generates  sinners.1 2 3  We  were  all  in  Adam  and  sinned 
when  he  sinned.  In  his  interpretation  of  Romans  v.  1 2,  he  first 
sets  aside  the  supposition  that  the  in  quo  of  the  Vulgate 
refers  to  “  sin  ”  or  to  “  death,”  and  infers  that  it  must  refer  to 
Adam  himself.  “  Nothing  remains,”  he  says,  “  but  to  conclude 
that  in  the  first  man  all  are  understood  to  have  sinned,  because 
all  were  in  him  when  he  sinned ;  whereby  sin  is  brought  in 
with  birth  and  not  removed  save  by  the  new  birth.”  He  then 
quotes  approvingly  the  sentence  ascribed  to  Hilary,  the  Roman 
deacon :  “  it  is  manifest  that  in  Adam  all  sinned,  so  to  speak, 
en  masse.” 2  By  that  sin  we  became  a  corrupt  mass  —  massa 
perditionis  ? 

So  important  was  this  hypothesis  in  his  view,  that  his  defence 
of  the  doctrine  of  Original  Sin  turned  upon  it.  Without  it,  he 
knew  of  no  refuge  against  the  sharp  and  merciless  logic  of  his 
adversaries.  Pelagius  himself  was  a  man  of  no  mean  ability  ;  but 
Augustine  found  in  Julian  his  peer  in  dialectic  skill,  which  he 
owed  partly  to  his  Aristotelian  training.  Julian  was  a  sharp  and 
vigorous,  as  well  as  a  fearless  antagonist.  He  seized  on  the  vul¬ 
nerable  points  in  Augustine’s  theory,  and  pursued  him  with  ques¬ 
tions  and  objections,  which  the  latter  was  quite  unable  to  parry 
except  by  his  Realistic  hypothesis.  This  is  strikingly  shown  in 
the  Opus  Imperfectum  or  Rejoinder  to  the  Second  Response  of 
Julian.  The  Pelagian  makes  his  appeal  to  the  sense  of  justice 

1  DeJVupt.  et  Concup.  II.  xxxiv. 

2  Coni,  duas  Epp.  Pelag.  IV.  7,  cf.  Op.  Imp.  II.  lxiii.,  De  Pec.  Mer.  et 
Remis.  III.  vii. 

3  De  Pecc.  Orig.  31,  De  Corrept.  et  Grat.  7. 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


IS/ 


which  God  has  implanted  in  every  human  breast,  and  which  utters 
a  firm  and  indignant  protest  against  the  doctrine  that  we  are 
blamed,  condemned,  and  punished  for  what  we  could  not  have 
prevented.  He  lays  hold  of  passages  in  favor  of  the  voluntari¬ 
ness  of  sin,  which  Augustine  had  written,  whilst  he  was  bent  on 
controverting  the  Manichseans.  To  all  this  Augustine  could  only 
reply  that  sin  began  in  an  act  of  the  human  will  —  the  will  of 
Adam ;  that  in  him  was  the  very  nature  with  which  we  are  born ; 
that  we  thus  participated  in  that  act,  and  justly  partake  of  the 
corruption  that  ensued  upon  it.  He  constantly  falls  back,  first  on 
the  authority  of  Paul,  in  the  fifth  of  Romans,  and  hardly  less  often 
on  the  authority  of  Ambrose,  whose  assertion  of  our  community 
of  being  with  Adam  and  agency  in  his  transgression,  had  the 
greatest  weight  with  his  admiring  and  reverential  pupil. 

But  how  vital  the  hypothesis  of  sinning  in  Adam  was  in  Augus¬ 
tine’s  theology  is  perhaps  most  manifest  in  the  way  in  which  he 
treats  the  litigated  question  of  the  origin  of  souls.  We  may  say 
here  that  a  great  mistake  is  made  by  those  who  imagine  that 
Creationists  —  that  is,  those  who  believe  that  each  soul  is  sepa¬ 
rately  created  —  cannot  be  Realists.  Whether  they  can  be  con¬ 
sistent  and  logical  Realists  may,  to  be  sure,  be  doubted.  At  the 
present  day  traducianism  —  the  theory  that  souls  result  from  pro¬ 
creation  —  is  accepted  by  theologians  who  believe,  with  Augustine, 
that  we  literally  sinned  in  Adam.  But  this  is  very  far  from  being 
the  uniform  fact  in  the  past.  Even  Anselm,  like  the  Schoolmen 
generally,  was  a  Creationist.  He,  with  a  host  of  theologians  before 
and  after  him,  held  firmly  to  our  real,  responsible  participation  in 
Adam’s  fall  and  to  the  corruption  of  our  nature  in  that  act,  and 
yet  refused  to  count  himself  among  the  traducians.  We  must  take 
history  as  it  is  and  not  seek  to  read  into  it  our  reasonings  and 
inferences.  If  we  do  not  find  philosophers  self-consistent,  we 
must  let  them  remain  self-inconsistent,  instead  of  altering  their 
systems  to  suit  our  ideas  of  logical  harmony. 

In  respect  to  the  question  of  the  origin  of  souls,  the  letter  of 
Augustine  to  Jerome  is  a  most  interesting  document,  and  one  the 
importance  of  which  has  seldom  been  duly  recognized.1  He  had 
previously  expressed  himself  as  doubtful  on  the  question,  though 
obviously  leaning  towards  the  traducian  side."  But  the  fear  of 
materialistic  notions,  enhanced  as  it  was  by  the  opposition  of  the 

1  Epistol.  C las  sis,  III.  clxvi.  2  De  Gen.  ad  loc.  L.  x. 


i88 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


Church  to  the  refined  materialism  of  Tertullian,  deterred  Augus¬ 
tine  then,  as  always,  from  espousing  the  traducian  theory.  This 
fear,  it  may  be  here  observed,  together  with  the  feeling  that  this 
theory  gives  too  much  agency  to  second  causes  in  the  production 
of  the  soul,  operated  in  subsequent  times  to  dissuade  theologians 
from  giving  sanction  to  the  same  hypothesis.  The  letter  to  Jerome 
is  a  candid  and  memorable  expression  of  the  difficulties  in  which 
Augustine  found  himself  involved  on  the  subject  to  which  it  relates. 
To  Jerome  he  resorts  for  light.  He  begins  by  saying  that  he 
has  prayed  and  still  prays  God  to  grant  that  his  application  may 
be  successful.  The  question  of  the  origin  of  souls  is  one  of  deep 
concern  to  him.  Of  the  soul’s  immortality  he  has  no  doubt, 
though  it  be  not  immortal  as  if  it  were  a  part  of  God,  and  in  the 
same  mode  in  which  He  is  immortal.  Of  the  immateriality  of  the 
soul,  he  is  equally  certain  ;  and  his  arguments  to  show  the  absurd¬ 
ity  of  supposing  the  soul  to  occupy  space  are  convincingly  stated. 
He  is  certain,  moreover,  that  the  soul  is  fallen  into  sin  by  no 
necessity,  whether  imposed  by  its  own  nature  or  by  God.  Yet 
the  soul  is  sinful  and  without  baptism  will  perish.  How  can  this 
be?  He  entreats  Jerome  to  solve  the  problem.  “Where  did 
the  soul  contract  the  guilt  by  which  it  is  brought  into  condemna¬ 
tion?”  In  his  book  De  Libero  Arbitrio,he  had  made  mention 
of  four  opinions  in  regard  to  the  origin  of  souls,  first,  that  souls 
are  propagated,  the  soul  of  Adam  alone  having  been  created ; 
secondly,  that  for  every  individual  a  new  soul  is  created ;  thirdly, 
that  the  soul  preexists  in  each  case,  and  is  sent  by  God  into  the 
body  at  birth ;  fourthly,  that  the  soul  preexists,  but  comes  into 
the  body  of  its  own  will.  A  fifth  supposition  that  the  soul  is  a 
part  of  Deity,  he  had  not  had  occasion  to  consider.  But  he  had 
gained  no  satisfactory  answer  to  the  problem.  Beset  by  inquirers, 
he  had  been  unable  to  solve  their  queries.  Neither  by  prayer, 
reading,  reflection,  or  reasoning,  had  he  been  able  to  find  his  way 
out  of  his  perplexity.1 

“  Teach  me,  therefore,  I  beg  you,  what  I  should  teach,  what  I 
should  hold  ;  and  tell  me,  if  it  be  true  that  souls  are  made  now 
and  separately  with  each  separate  birth,  where  in  little  children 
they  sin,  that  they  should  need  in  the  sacrament  of  Ghrist  the 
remission  of  sin  ”  ;  “  or  if  they  do  not  sin,  with  what  justice  they 

1  Epist .  III.  LXV.  c.  iv.  9.  “  Et  ea  neque  orando,  neque  legendo,  neque 

cogitando  et  ratiocinando  invenire  potuimus.” 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


189 


are  so  bound  by  another’s  sin,  when  they  are  inserted  in  the 
mortal,  propagated  members,  that  damnation  follows  them,  unless 
it  is  prevented  by  the  Church  (through  baptism)  ;  since  it  is  not 
in  their  power  to  cause  the  grace  of  baptism  to  be  brought  to 
them.  So  many  thousands  of  souls,  then,  which  depart  from  their 
bodies  without  having  received  Christian  baptism,  —  with  what 
justice  are  they  condemned,  in  case  they  are  newly  created,  with 
no  preceding  sin,  but,  on  the  contrary,  by  the  will  of  the 
Creator,  each  of  these  souls  was  given  to  each  new-born  child, 
for  animating  whom  He  created  and  gave  it,  —  by  the  will  of  the 
Creator,  who  knew  that  each  of  them,  through  no  fault  of  his  own, 
would  go  out  of  the  body  without  Christian  baptism  ?  Since,  then, 
we  can  neither  say  of  God  that  He  compels  souls  to  become  sin¬ 
ful,  or  punishes  the  innocent,  and  since  likewise  it  is  not  right  to 
assert  that  those  who  depart  from  the  body  without  the  sacrament, 
even  little  children,  escape  from  damnation;  I  beseech  you  to  say 
how  this  opinion  is  defended  which  assumes  that  souls  come  into 
being ,  not  all  from  that  one  soul  of  the  first  man ,  but  for  every 
man  a  separate  soul ,  like  that  one  for  Adam  ?  ^ 

Other  objections  to  creationism  Augustine  feels  competent 
easily  to  meet ;  but  when  it  comes  to  the  penalties  inflicted  on 
little  children,  he  begs  Jerome  to  believe  that  he  is  in  a  strait  and 
knows  not  what  to  think  or  to  say.1  He  confesses  that  what  he 
had  written  in  his  book  on  Free-Will  of  the  imaginary  benefits  of 
suffering,  even  to  infants,  will  not  suffice  to  explain  even  the  suffer¬ 
ings  of  the  unbaptized  in  this  life.  “  I  require,  therefore,  the 
ground  of  this  condemnation  of  little  children,  because ,  in  case 
souls  are  separately  created ,  I  do  not  see  that  any  of  them  sin  at 
that  age ,  nor  do  /  believe  that  any  one  is  condemned  by  God,  whom 
He  sees  to  have  no  sinP  He  repeats  again  and  again  this  pressing 
inquiry.  “  Something  perfectly  strong  and  invincible  is  required, 
which  will  not  force  us  to  believe  that  God  condemns  any  soul 
without  any  fault.”  He  fervently  desires  from  Jerome  the  means 
of  escaping  from  this  great  perplexity ;  he  would  prefer  to  em¬ 
brace  the  Creationist  theory  ;  but  on  this  theory,  he  sees  no  possi¬ 
ble  mode  in  which  native,  inherent  depravity  and  the  destruction 
of  the  unbaptized  can  be  held,  consistently  with  the  justice  of 
God. 

1  “  Magnis,  mihi,  crede,  coarctor  angustiis,  nec  quid  respondeam  prorsus 
invenio.” 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


I90 

Such  was  the  theology  of  Augustine.  If  there  is  no  real  partici¬ 
pation  in  Adam’s  transgression  on  our  part,  he  can  see  no  justice 
in  making  us  partakers  of  its  penalty,  or  in  attributing  to  us  a 
sinful  nature  from  birth. 

“Persona  corrumpit  naturam ;  natura  corrumpit  personam.” 
So  the  doctrine  was  summarily  stated.  In  Adam  human  nature, 
by  his  act,  was  vitiated.  That  corrupted  nature  is  transmitted, 
through  physical  generation,  to  his  descendants.  They  acted  in 
him  —  in  another  —  and  are,  therefore,  truly  counted  sinners, 
being  sinfully  corrupt  from  the  beginning  of  individual  life.  Con¬ 
cupiscence,  the  principle  of  sin,  includes  the  baser  proclivities  of 
human  nature,  but  it  is  the  sexual  passion  which  Augustine  most 
frequently  has  in  mind  in  connection  with  the  term.  The  sexual 
instinct,  he  holds,  was,  in  Paradise,  void  of  lust  and  unattended  by 
shame. 

In  the  system  of  Pelagius  men  were  made  mortal.1  They  did 
not  become  such  by  Adam’s  sin.  As  far  as  they  are  sinners  it  is 
by  doing  as  Adam  did.  All  good  or  evil  is  something  “  done  by 
us,  for  we  are  capable  of  either.” 2  There  is  at  our  birth  nothing 
within  us  but  what  God  placed  there.3  The  supposition  of  sin  in 
infants  before  the  exercise  of  reason,  prior  to  the  “election”  of 
evil,  is  monstrous.  Pelagius  makes  room  in  his  theory  for  the 
increase  and  spread  of  sin  among  mankind,  which  renders  it  more 
difficult  to  do  right ;  but  the  liberty  of  election  is  never  subverted.4 

Augustine’s  idea  of  character  was  qualitative.  Everything  de¬ 
pends  on  the  single,  underlying  principle.  If  this  be  the  love  of 
God,  man  is  righteous.  If  the  love  of  God  is  absent,  his  virtues 
are  at  best  splendida  vitia.  The  idea  of  the  unity  or  simplicity  of 
character  has  no  place  in  the  system  of  Pelagius.  His  conception 
of  character  is  atomistic.  In  keeping  with  this  difference,  while 

1  We  have  the  extant  writings  of  Pelagius  himself:  the  Expositiones  in 
Epist.  Paul ,  Epist.  ad  Demetr .,  and  the  Libell.  Fidei  et  Innocent,  (both  in¬ 
cluded  among  Jerome’s  works,  the  latter  in  Hahn,  2d  ed.  p.  213  sq.).  Other 
writings  of  Pelagius  remain  only  fragments,  in  Augustine  and  other  opponents. 
We  have  fragments  of  Coelestius  in  quotations  in  Augustine.  For  fragments 
of  his  Confession  of  Faith,  see  Hahn,  p.  218.  Copious  extracts  from  Julian 
are  in  Augustine  ( Opus  Imperfect,  etc.,  and  elsewhere),  and  in  Marius  Mer¬ 
cator.  Julian’s  Confession  of  Faith  is  in  Hahn,  p.  219  sq. 

2  Pelagius,  De  lib.  arbitr.  (in  Augustin.,  De  Pecc.  Orig.  14) 

3  See  Aug.  De  Pecc.  Orig.  13. 

4  Ep.  ad  Demetr.  c.  8:  “  Longa  consuetudo  vitiorum,”  etc. 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


IQ  I 


Augustine  believed  in  the  universality  of  sin  (with  the  possible 
exception  of  the  Virgin  Mary) ,  Pelagius  held  that  some  —  for 
example,  Abel,  John  the  Baptist  —  had  lived  without  sin. 

In  reply  to  Augustine’s  argument  from  the  practise  of  infant 
baptism,  the  Pelagians  brought  forward  a  distinction  between 
“  life  eternal,”  to  which  the  unbaptized  may  attain,  and  the 
“  kingdom  of  heaven,”  a  state  of  higher  blessedness,  which  is  open 
only  to  the  baptized.  Baptized  persons,  said  Augustine,  are  not 
free  from  original  sin.  It  is  only  the  guilt  that  is  washed  away  in 
baptism ;  the  concupiscence,  although  weakened,  is  entailed  and 
remains. 

Respecting  the  condition  of  the  human  will  since  the  fall, 
Augustine  affirms  that  the  will  is  not  eradicated ;  it  continues  in 
full  activity.1  Yet  there  is  a  bondage  of  the  will,  with  no  power 
of  self-deliverance.  “We  are  not  liberated  from  righteousness 
save  by  the  choice  of  the  will ;  we  are  not  liberated  from  sin 
save  by  the  grace  of  the  Redeemer.” 

To  Pelagius  the  grace  of  God  consisted  in  the  revelations  made 
of  His  will  and  of  the  trurth,  first  as  sin  began  to  increase,  in  the 
Law,  and  then  through  the  life  and  teaching  of  Christ.2  To  these 
gifts  of  grace  are  added  the  discipline  of  trials  and  the  like. 
Grace  facilitates  the  right  action  of  the  will,  but  this  action  under 
the  Gospel  is  from  man  himself,  accepting  and  obeying  when  he 
has  full  power  to  refuse  and  disobey.  Liberty  continues,  which 
Julian  concisely  defines  as  the  possibility  in  the  will  of  either  admit¬ 
ting  or  avoiding  sin,  it  being  exempt  from  a  constraining  necessity. 
Whatever  aids  of  grace  are  specially  bestowed  on  Christians  are 
procured  by  their  own  merits.  According  to  Augustine,  all  ex¬ 
ternal  provisions  designed  to  move  the  heart  are  ineffectual  as  a 
means  of  conversion,  apart  from  the  Grace  of  the  Spirit  operating 
within  the  soul.  By  this  inward  power  from  above,  the  will, 
in  the  case  of  all  true  believers,  is  not  only  enabled  to  believe,  but 
is  effectually  moved  to  believe.  There  is  bestowed  not  only,  as 
the  Pelagians  taught,  the  esse  and  the  posse ,  but,  also  the  velle,  — 
the  right  choice,  the  new  heart. 

From  the  sinfulness  and  impotency  of  all  men,  Augustine 
deduced  the  doctrine  of  unconditional  predestination.  They  who 
believe  in  the  Gospel  with  a  saving  faith  are  not  merely  elected  to 
be  the  recipients  of  the  heavenly  reward ;  they  are  elected  to  be 

1  C.  duas  Epp.  Pelag.  II.  9.  2  See  in  Augustine,  De  Grat.  Christ. 


192 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


the  recipients  6f  faith.1  Faith  itself  is  the  gift  of  God.  All  others 
are  left  in  their  sins  —  left  to  perish.  They  are  not  predestinated 
to  sin,  but  rather  to  the  punishment  which  sin  deserves,  from 
which  they  are  not  saved  by  electing  grace.  The  number  of  the 
elect  is  fixed.2  It  is  predetermined  in  the  plan  of  God.  But  not 
all  believers  are  of  the  elect.  Perseverance  in  the  new,  holy  life 
is  the  gift  of  God,  and  is  bestowed  on  that  portion  of  believers  to 
whom  God  in  His  inscrutable  wisdom  chooses  to  grant  it. 

The  doctrines  which  are  sketched  above  were  not  the  opinions 
of  Augustine  in  the  earlier  period  subsequent  to  his  conversion. 
It  was  the  period  in  which  he  controverted  the  Manichaeans.  At 
that  time  he  held,  not  to  absolute,  but  to  conditional,  predestination, 
and  to  a  reserved  power  in  the  will,  notwithstanding  our  need  of 
divine  succor.  Man,  he  held,  can  exercise  faith  by  his  own  power, 
and  thereby  obtain  the  gift  of  converting  grace.  In  394,  when  he 
wrote  his  commentary  on  the  Romans,  he  contrasted  an  election 
on  the  ground  of  works  with  election  conditioned  on  faith,  and 
ascribed  to  the  elect  hidden  merits  —  occultissima  merita  —  that 
is,  certain  dispositions  of  heart  which  are  the  ground  and  reason 
of  their  being  elected.  Further  reflection  on  his  own  spiritual 
experience  and  later  study  of  the  Scriptures  convinced  him  that 
election  is  unconditional,  that  the  contrast  in  the  Epistle  to  the 
Romans  is  not  between  an  election  on  the  ground  of  works  and  an 
election  on  the  ground  of  faith,  but  between  a  work  springing 
wholly  from  God,  and  man’s  doings  of  whatever  sort.  The  election 
of  a  man  is  not  a  judgment  in  his  favor,  in  comparison  with  other 
men,  but  an  act  of  sovereign  grace.  In  the  Apostle’s  assertion 
(1  Tim.  ii.  1-4)  :  “  Who  will  have  all  men  to  be  saved,  and  to  come 
unto  the  knowledge  of  the  truth,”  Augustine  makes  “  all  men  ” 
denote  “  every  sort  of  men.”  That  is,  the  gift  of  salvation  is  not 
restricted  to  any  one  nation  or  class.  But  we  cannot  believe  that 
“  the  omnipotent  God  has  willed  anything  to  be  done  which  was 
not  done.”  3 

A  study  of  Augustine’s  Writings  reveals  to  us  two  discordant 
veins  of  thought.  There  are  two  currents  and  they  flow  in  oppo¬ 
site  directions.  On  the  one  hand,  there  is  the  common  Catholic 

1  De  Praedest.  Sanctorum,  37,  c.  18. 

2  De  Corrept.  et  Grat.  39,  c.  13. 

3  Enchirid.  103. 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


193 


ecclesiasticism,  in  which  he  lived  and  moved,  and  which  as  a 
rule  shapes  his  doctrinal  statements.  On  the  other  hand,  there 
is  the  great  idea  of  the  church  spiritual  and  invisible,  composed 
of  the  saints  elect.  This  church  is  included  within  the  ecclesias¬ 
tical  body.  The  latter  is  a  corpus  permixtum.  Election  does 
not  cleave  to  the  sacraments.  They  have  no  saving  efficacy  for 
the  non-elect.  Augustine  wrote  no  full  and  elaborate  system. 
When  his  mind  is  turned  to  that  spiritual  body  to  which  alone 
future  blessedness  belongs,  we  find  him  no  longer  insisting  on 
the  indispensableness  of  baptism  and  of  the  other  sacraments. 
There  were  men  who  were  not  Israelites,  who  yet  belonged  to 
“  the  spiritual  Jerusalem.”  That  “  holy  and  wonderful  man  Job  ” 
was  undeniably  one  of  these.  This  instance  of  Job  is  given  us 
in  Scripture  that  we  might  infer  the  existence  of  a  larger,  spiritual 
Israel,  embracing  men  of  other  nations.1  The  Cumaean  Sybil  is 
referred  to  by  Augustine  as  another  like  example.2  More  general, 
and,  as  we  may  say,  more  generous,  are  statements  in  a  letter  to 
Deogratias.3  “  From  the  beginning  of  the  human  race,”  it  is  said, 
“  whosoever  believed  in  Him  ”  —  that  is  in  Christ,  who  prefigured 
in  different  ways  the  manifestation  of  Himself  in  the  flesh  —  “  and 
in  any  way  knew  him,  and  lived  in  a  pious  and  just  manner  accord¬ 
ing  to  his  precepts,  was  undoubtedly  saved  by  him,  in  whatever 
time  and  place  he  may  have  lived.”  Attention  to  much  that 
Augustine  says  relative  to  the  hierarchy  and  ordination  discovers 
the  same  bent  as  that  here  illustrated.  The  Enchiridion ,  which 
is  the  only  summary  view  of  theology  that  he  composed,  connects 
the  development  of  doctrine  with  the  three  Christian  virtues, 
Faith,  Hope,  and  Love.4 

1  De  Civ.  Dei ,  XVIII.  47.  2  Ibid.  23.  3  Let.  CII.  12. 

4  The  antithesis  in  Augustine  between  the  “  vulgar-Katholisch  ”  line  of 
thought  and  teaching  and  the  spiritual,  non-ecclesiastical,  as  well  as  other 
antitheses  in  Augustine’s  teaching,  are  lucidly  and  thoroughly  described  by 
H.  Reuter,  in  his  Augzisthiische  Studien  (1887).  See  especially  the  excellent 
summaries,  pp.  100-105,  1 50-1 52,  355-358.  See,  also,  Harnack’s  very  able 
exposition  pf  Augustine  (DG.  Vol.  III.). 

o 


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CHAPTER  VII 


PELAGIANISM  AND  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  EAST  ON  THE  CON¬ 
TROVERTED  TOPICS - SEMI-PELAGLANISM - GREGORY  I. 

In  41  i,  Pelagius  and  Coelestius  went  over  to  Africa,  where 
Pelagius  met  Augustine.  Pelagius  soon  betook  himself  to  the 
East.  In  412,  the  Presbyter  Pauliniis,  from  Milan,  charged 
Coelestius  with  heresy,  before  a  synod  at  Carthage,  imput¬ 
ing  to  him  six  heretical  propositions.1  Coelestius  was  excluded 
from  the  fellowship  of  the  Church,  and  repaired  to  the  East. 
There  Jerome,  with  no  clear  understanding  of  the  points  of  the 
controversy,  and  swayed  by  his  hostility  to  Rufinus,  who  was  a 
friend  of  Pelagius,  entered  with  heat  into  the  warfare  against  his 
doctrines.  In  415,  Orosius,  a  young  Spanish  presbyter  who  was 
on  a  visit  to  Jerome,  made  an  accusation  against  Pelagius  before 
an  assembly  of  Jerusalem  presbyters  under  their  bishop  John, 
who,  on  hearing  the  explanation  of  the  accused,  declined  to 
pronounce  against  him.  As  Pelagius  was  of  the  Latin  Church, 
he  said,  it  belonged  to  the  Roman  bishop  to  take  cognizance  of 
the  matter.  In  the  same  year,  at  a  Synod  at  Diospolis  in  Pales¬ 
tine,  presided  over  by  Eulogius,  Bishop  of  Caesarea,  Pelagius  was 
again  charged  with  heresy  by  the  Western  bishops,  but  was  ac¬ 
quitted,  owing,  Augustine  alleges,  to  a  lack  of  candor  in  his  dis¬ 
avowals.2  The  Synods  of  Carthage  and  Mileve  and  Augustine 
personally,  in  416,  made  a  successful  effort  to  procure  a  condem¬ 
nation  of  Pelagius  and  Coelestius,  from  Innocent  I.  But  his 
successor,  Zosimus,  on  receiving  a  confession  of  faith  which 
Pelagius  had  sent  to  Innocent,  and  certain  declarations  from 
Coelestius,  publicly  testified  to  the  orthodoxy  of  both.  The 
African  bishops,  assembled  at  Carthage,  at  the  end  of  417  or 

1  Mercator,  Comm.  II.  p.  133.  See  Miinscher,  DG.  I.  374,  N.  1. 

2  For  accounts  of  this  Synod,  see  Mansi,  IV.  pp.  315  sq.  See  Hefele, 
History  of  Councils,  II.  B.  VIII.  §118. 

194 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


195 


the  beginning  of  418,  declared  their  adherence  to  the  decision 
of  Innocent.  At  a  general  council  of  the  North  African  bishops 
in  418,  eight  or  nine  Canons  were  passed,  asserting  the  xYugus- 
tinian,  and  rejecting  the  Pelagian,  opinions.1  The  Emperor 
Honorius  was  induced  to  issue  a  threatening  Rescript  against 
the  adherents  of  the  new  heresy.  There  were  other  imperial 
edicts  promulgated  later  of  the  same  character.  Zosimus,  after  a 
second  and  then  a  general  African  Council  at  Carthage,  although 
he  had  previously  begun  to  waver,  changed  his  position.  At  a 
Roman  Synod,  Pelagius  and  Ccelestius  were  condemned,  and  a 
circular  epistle  —  tractoria  —  was  issued  by  Zosimus,  sanctioning  in 
full  the  action  of  the  North  African  Church.  All  bishops  in  the 
West  were  required  to  assent  to  the  letter  of  Zosimus  on  pain  of 
deposition.  Eighteen  bishops,  of  whom  Julian  of  Eclanam  was 
the  most  eminent,  refused  compliance.  Many  of  them  took 
refuge  in  the  East.  Julian  was  received  by  Theodore  of  Mop- 
suestia,  who  did  not  agree  with  all  his  opinions,  but  rejected  the 
doctrine  of  innate  sin.  Their  connection  with  Nestorius  and 
his  followers  brought  upon  some  of  the  Pelagians  a  share  of  their 
unpopularity.  Marius  Mercator,  a  layman  from  the  West,  made 
great  exertions  to  convince  the  Emperor  Theodosius  II.  of  the 
heterodoxy  of  the  Pelagians.  As  a  result  of  these  complications, 
the  Council  of  Ephesus  in  431,  which  condemned  Nestorius, 
condemned  also  Coelestius  and  his  adherents,  but  without 
specifying  their  errors.  It  is  obvious  in  all  these  transactions 
that  the  real  convictions  of  the  Eastern  Church  were  midway 
between  Augustine  and  Pelagius,  and  that  the  East,  especially 
the  Antiochian  theologians,  apart  from  influences  from  without 
and  from  accidental  causes,  were  disposed  to  tolerate  the  obnox¬ 
ious  leaders.  These  leaders  always  affirmed  that  their  opinions 
contained  no  dogmas ,  had  received  no  authoritative  condemna¬ 
tion  from  the  Church,  but  related  to  questions  where  debate  and 
difference  of  judgment  were  permissible. 

The  support  which  Augustine  received  in  the  West,  as  concerns 
the  doctrines  of  absolute  inability,  irresistible  grace,  and  uncondi¬ 
tional  predestination,  was  far  from  being  unanimous.  The  Gen¬ 
eral  Council  of  Carthage  had  gone  no  farther  than  to  declare  that 
it  was  the  fall  of  Adam  that  brought  in  death,  that  infants  are  to 
be  baptized  for  the  remission  of  sin  derived  from  Adam,  that 

1  Mansi,  III.  810-823.  See  Hefele  (as  above),  §  119. 


196 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


grace  operates  within  the  soul,  giving  the  requisite  aid  to  avoid 
sin,  that  sinless  perfection  is  unattainable  in  this  life.  In  426  or 
427,  it  was  reported  to  Augustine  that  the  monks  in  the  cloister 
of  Adrumetum  in  North  Africa  were  in  some  cases  driven  to 
despair,  in  other  cases  moved  to  careless  self-indulgence,  by  his 
teaching  as  to  man’s  helplessness  and  as  to  irresistible  grace.  He 
addressed  to  them  two  Writings  to  correct  these  evils.1  Even 
Jerome,  the  champion  of  the  Augustinian  cause,  did  not  give  up 
his  belief  in  a  remaining  freedom  in  the  will,  nor  did  he  really 
adopt  the  tenets  of  absolute  election  and  irresistible  grace.  It 
is  a  remarkable  fact  in  Doctrinal  History  that  it  was  by  way  of 
indirect  opposition  to  these  opinions  of  Augustine  that  Vincent 
of  Lerins  wrote  his  (first)  Commonitory  (434),  in  which  he  set 
forth  the  criteria  of  catholic  doctrine.  These  are  declared  to  be 
antiquity,  universality.  This  is  equivalent  to  saying  that  that  only 
is  of  the  faith,  is  catholic  or  orthodox  doctrine,  which  is  accepted 
always,  everywhere,  and  by  all  —  semper ,  ubique  et  ah  otnnibus. 
Among  the  mild  and  moderate  dissenters  from  Augustine’s  doc¬ 
trine  of  predestination  was  Hilary,  Bishop  of  Arles,  who  had 
lived  in  the  cloister  at  Lerins.  But  the  most  conspicuous  of  these 
dissenters  was  John  Cassianus.  He  had  been  educated  in  the 
East,  and  was  the  founder  and  guide  of  the  Cloister  at  Marseilles. 
His  name  is  associated  with  the  type  of  theology  designated  by 
the  Schoolmen  “  Semi-Pelagian,”  but  which,  it  has  been  said,  might 
as  well  be  termed  “  Semi- Augustinian.”  He  held  to  a  proclivity 
of  the  heart  to  sin,  and  to  the  need  of  an  inward  operation  of 
.grace,  man  being  of  himself  insufficient.  But  he  did  not  consider 
this  inborn  propensity  to  evil  to  be  in  the  proper  sense  guilty,  he 
asserted  a  remaining  power  and  a  cooperative  agency  of  the 
human  will  in  conversion,  and,  therefore,  a  conditional  predes¬ 
tination.  Made  acquainted  with  these  movements  by  Prosper  of 
Aquitania  and  another  Hilary,  a  layman,  Augustine  wrote  two 
treatises  in  defence  of  his  views.2  These  friends  wrote  on  the 
same  side,  and  continued  the  controversy  after  Augustine’s  death. 
Prosper  set  forth  Augustine’s  opinion  on  predestination  with  a 
studious  moderation.  In  the  same  spirit  was  written  an  anony¬ 
mous  work  on  the  Calling  of  the  Gentiles,3  in  which  a  distinction 

1  De  Grat.  et  lib.  Arbitr.  and  De  Corrept.  et  Grat. 

2  De  Predest.  Sanctorum  and  De  Dono  Perseverantice. 

3  De  Vo  cat.  Gentilium. 


ANCIENT  THEOLOGY 


197 


was  made  between  general  and  special  grace,  —  the  last  alone 
being  effectual.  Another  anonymous  work  entitled  Predestinatus , 
in  which  the  doctrine  was  presented  in  the  baldest  form,  was, 
perhaps,  composed  by  a  Semi-Pelagian  as  a  caricature  and 
weapon  of  assault.  In  the  last  half  of  the  fifth  century,  Faustus, 
Bishop  of  Rhegium,  was  an  able  advocate  of  the  Semi-Pelagian 
doctrine.  One  of  his  opponents,  a  presbyter,  Lucidus  by  name, 
an  extreme  defender  of  predestination,  retracted  his  opinion  at  a 
Council  at  Arles  in  475.  The  treatise1  written  by  Faustus  com¬ 
bated  alike  Pelagius,  who  was  characterized  as  “  pestiferous  ”  and 
the  “  error  ”  of  the  advocates  of  predestination. 

Through  a  peculiar  conjunction  of  circumstances,  in  the  sixth 
century,  the  Semi-Pelagian  Controversy  broke  out  afresh.  In 
Sardinia  and  Corsica  there  were  certain  banished  North  African 
bishops,  among  them  Fulgentius  of  Numidia.  In  519,  Possessor, 
an  African  bishop,  in  a  contest  with  the  Scythian  monks  respecting 
their  theopaschite  formula,  referred  to  Faustus  as  an  authority  on 
his  side  of  the  question.  The  monks  sought  for  a  verdict  against 
the  orthodoxy  of  his  work,  and  not  obtaining  satisfaction  from 
Hormisdas,  Bishop  of  Rome  (514-553),  they  turned  to  the  exiled 
bishops.  Fulgentius  was  thus  led  to  compose  a  series  of  books 
in  defence  of  Augustinian  predestination.  Others  appeared  011 
the  same  side  in  South  Gaul,  including  Caesarius,  Bishop  of  Arles, 
although  the  Synod  of  Valence  in  529  did  not  antagonize  the 
Semi-Pelagian  opinion.  On  the  occasion  of  the  consecration  of 
a  church  in  529  at  Orange,  in  the  province  of  Arles,  a  Synod  com¬ 
posed  of  fourteen  bishops,  including  Caesarius,  accepted  a  collec¬ 
tion  of  statements  quoted  from  Augustine  and  Prosper,  and  adopted 
an  additional  creed.  The  Council  asserted  the  necessity  of  pre- 
venient  grace,  and  the  necessity  of  grace  at  every  stage  of  the 
soul’s  renewal,  and  affirmed  that  unmerited  grace  precedes  merito¬ 
rious  works,  that  all  good,  including  love  to  God,  is  God’s  gift, 
that  even  unfallen  man  is  in  need  of  grace.  But  not  only  is  pre¬ 
destination  to  sin  denied,  but  there  is  no  affirmation  of  uncondi¬ 
tional  election  or  irresistible  grace.  Moreover,  free-will  is  said 
to  be  “ weakened”  in  Adam,  and  restored  through  the  grace 
of  baptism.  The  creed  is  anti-Pelagian,  but  the  tenets  of  Semi- 
Pelagianism  are  only  in  part  explicitly  condemned.  It  was  sanc¬ 
tioned  by  the  Roman  Bishop,  Boniface  II. 

1  De  Grat.  Dei  et  human.  Mentis  lib.  arbitr. 


198 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


In  Gregory  I.,  a  great  leader  and  administrator,  but  having  no 
eminence  as  a  theological  thinker,  the  patristic  period  in  the 
West  is  brought  to  a  close.  In  him  Augustinian  beliefs  were 
intermingled  with  Semi-Pelagian  ideas.  Insisting  on  the  doctrine 
of  prevenient  grace,  he  drops  the  idea  of  a  grace  that  is  irresist¬ 
ible  and  a  freedom  that  is  totally  lost.  Sin  is  forgiven  in  baptism, 
but  salvation  is  a  personal  achievement  through  penitence  and 
meritorious  works,  with  grace  within  as  an  auxiliary.  If  perdition 
is  the  penalty  of  mortal  sins,  of  mortal  offences  for  which  satis¬ 
faction  through  penances  here  has  not  been  rendered,  sins  of  a 
lower  grade  may  be  atoned  for  and  the  soul  purified  in  the  fires 
of  purgatory.  So  the  conjecture  of  Augustine  is  raised  to  the  rank 
of  definite,  positive  teaching.  The  Lord’s  Supper  is  regarded  as 
a  literal  sacrifice,  of  avail  not  only  for  the  benefit  of  the  living, 
but  also  for  sufferers  in  purgatory.  If  the  Church  is  not  identified 
with  the  community  of  saints,  it  is  through  the  Church,  its  ordi¬ 
nances  and  its  sacraments,  that  these  are  provided  with  the  means 
of  salvation.  A  main  ground  of  hope  is  the  intercession  of  per¬ 
fected  saints  and  angels.  In  sympathy  with  Augustine,  the  Word 
of  God  and  the  Spirit  attending  the  dispensation  of  the  Word  are 
prized.  At  the  same  time,  those  ceremonies  and  other  prac¬ 
tices  which  the  Church  had  taken  up  in  its  passage  through  heathen 
society  —  which  made  up  the  Christianity  of  “  the  second  grade,” 
the  common  Catholicism  which  was  accepted  by  Augustine,  but 
which,  however  inconsistently,  his  deeper,  spiritual  thoughts  broke 
through  at  so  many  points  —  all  these  were  cherished  in  the  sys¬ 
tem  of  Gregory,  and  this  combination  of  tenets  was  handed  down 
to  the  next  following  centuries. 


PART  II 


MEDIAL  VAL  THEOLOGY 


o-o^^oo 


PERIOD  III 

THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  ROMAN  CATHOLIC  THEOLOGY  IN 
THE  MIDDLE  AGES  AND  ITS  REDUCTION  TO  A  SYSTE¬ 
MATIC  FORM 

- ♦<>•■ - 


CHAPTER  I 

FROM  GREGORY  I  TO  CHARLEMAGNE - THE  WORK  OF  MEDIEVAL 

THEOLOGY - THEOLOGY  IN  THE  EASTERN  CHURCH - THEOLOGY 

AND  EDUCATION  IN  THE  WEST - JOHN  SCOTUS 

As  far  as  the  West  is  concerned,  Gregory  the  First  is  the  ? 
connecting  link  between  the  ancient  and  the  mediaeval  period. 

In  him  the  patristic  age  comes  to  an  end.  The  Church  now 
enters  in  earnest  upon  the  work  of  converting  and  training  the 
nations  of  Germanic  origin.  They  were  taught  its  doctrines,  and 
its  institutions  were  planted  among  them.  In  general  it  was  no 
longer  a  question  what  these  doctrines  are.  They  were  transmitted 
as  an  inheritance  from  the  Church  of  the  Fathers  to  the  succeed¬ 
ing  ages.  It  was  a  sacred  tradition,  attested  by  ecclesiastical 
authority,  the  validity  of  which  it  was  impious  to  doubt.  Its 
living  guardians  were  the  Roman  hierarchy.  Should  doubts  arise 
as  to  its  import,  it  was  their  function,  and  more  and  more,  as  time 
went  on,  the  recognized  prerogative  of  the  Popes,  to  define  it. 
But  of  this  tradition  there  existed  no  full  or  exact,  no  lucid  and 
consistent  exposition.  It  was  comprised  to  a  great  extent  in  the 

199 


200 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


writings  of  Augustine  and  of  the  Fathers  generally.  Moreover  — 
and  this  is  a  point  not  to  be  overlooked  —  it  was  embodied,  in 
no  small  part,  only  by  implication  in  those  liturgical  practices  and 
other  customs  of  the  Church  which  had  grown  up  in  the  course 
of  centuries.  Thus  there  was  a  held  open,  albeit  with  prescribed 
limits,  for  theological  inquiry  and  discussion.  This  was  the  under¬ 
taking  of  the  mediaeval  theologians  —  to  give  precision  and  har¬ 
mony  to  the  accepted  beliefs,  written  and  unwritten,  and  to  defend 
them.  It  would  prove  to  be  impossible  to  confine  religious  thought 
strictly  within  the  barriers  set,  but  such  was  the  design.  It  was 
not  a  voyage  for  the  discovery  of  new  lands.  Theology  was  like 
an  estate  which  is  left  to  an  heir  with  the  liberty  to  run  fences 
across  it  and  to  connect  its  parts  by  roads  and  bridges,  but  not 
to  widen  or  contract  its  boundaries,  to  drain  a  marsh,  or  to  fell 
a  single  tree. 

In  the  East,  a  petrified  creed  and  ritual  and  the  despotism  of 
secular  rulers  chilled  intellectual  activity.  The  Eastern  Empire 
appeared  to  be  strong  for  a  while,  under  Justinian,  but  it  was 
strong  only  in  appearance.  The  fairest  parts  of  Italy  were  soon 
wrested  from  it  by  the  Lombards,  and  there  was  left  to  the  Byzan¬ 
tine  rulers  only  a  nominal  sovereignity,  limited  to  the  coast.  In 
the  sixth  and  beginning  of  the  seventh  century,  the  Persians  rav¬ 
aged  the  Asiatic  provinces  and  carried  their  arms  almost  to  the 
gates  of  Constantinople.  A  few  years  after  the  victories  of  Hera- 
clius  the  Mohammedans  began  the  career  of  conquest  which  tore 
from  the  Empire  the  provinces  that  embraced  the  three  patri¬ 
archates  of  Antioch,  Jerusalem,  and  Alexandria.  Elsewhere  the 
Slavonic  tribes,  which  were  to  the  Eastern  Empire  what  the  Teu¬ 
tonic  invaders  were  in  the  West,  were  pushing  their  incursions 
and  founding  their  settlements.  The  Empire  was  like  a  tree 
centuries  old,  its  branches  broken  off  and  its  vigor  departed,  yet 
still  standing  with  a  tenacity  of  life  that  yields,  inch  by  inch,  to 
the  process  of  decay.  The  Church  clung  to  the  minutiae  of  the 
cultus.  The  Second  Trullan  Council  (692)  prescribed  the  manner 
in  which  a  layman  should  hold  his  hands  in  receiving  the  com¬ 
munion.  The  Second  Nicene  Council  (787)  ordained  that  no 
Church  should  be  consecrated  unless  it  were  provided  with  relics. 
The  Second  Trullan  Council  asserted  the  authority  of  the  first  six 
oecumenical  councils,  at  the  same  time  that  it  condemned  the 
Roman  Bishop,  Honorius ;  it  specified  the  authoritative  sources 


MEDIEVAL  THEOLOGY 


201 


with  regard  to  Church  discipline,  and  laid  down  the  law  relative 
to  the  marriage  of  the  clergy,  —  presbyters  and  deacons,  if  they 
are  married  before  ordination,  being  permitted  to  continue  in 
the  married  state.  The  same  Council  reaffirmed  the  Canon  of 
Chalcedon  on  the  rank  of  the  Bishop  of  Constantinople,  and 
declared  against  the  use  of  pictures  of  the  Lamb,  enjoining  the 
use  of  pictures  of  Christ  himself  instead  of  these  typical  represen¬ 
tations.  Pope  Sergius  I.  forbade  the  publication  of  the  decrees 
of  the  Council  in  the  West.  The  spirit  of  piety  in  the  East  was 
chiefly  kept  alive  in  the  monasteries.  From  these  the  bishops 
were  generally  taken.  All  through  the  Middle  Ages  there  were 
scholarship  and  learning  in  the  Eastern  Church,  but  after  John 
of  Damascus  their  fruits  appeared  in  antiquarian  researches,  not 
in  original  production.  After  the  controversy  respecting  images, 
which  was  disastrous  in  its  influence,  intellectual  life  was  chiefly 
manifest  in  the  contests  with  the  Western  Church,  which  from 
time  to  time  broke  out  afresh.  They  were  aggravated  by  the 
growing  pretensions  and  extending  power  of  the  Popes.  After 
the  coronation  of  Charlemagne,  they  were  still  further  promoted 
by  political  jealousy.  The  displacement  of  Ignatius  from  the 
patriarchate  of  Constantinople  (857)  and  the  elevation  of  Photius 
in  his  place  brought  on  a  conflict  with  Pope  Nicholas  I.,  in  the 
course  of  which  Photius  issued  an  encyclical  letter  (866)  in  which 
he  declared  the  Latin  Church  to  be  heretical  on  account  of  its 
rule  of  celibacy,  its  interpolation  of  the  creeds,  and  various  ritual 
practices.  In  863  Nicholas  had  excommunicated  him.  In  86 7, 
a  synod  at  Constantinople  excommunicated  the  Pope.  After 
various  turns  of  fortune  in  the  combat  between  Photius  and  his 
enemies,  and  a  temporary  restoring  of  amity  with  Rome,  Nicholas 
(in  882)  renewed  the  ban  against  him  and  it  was  not  again  re¬ 
called.  In  the  middle  of  the  eleventh  century,  the  rupture 
between  the  Churches  of  the  East  and  the  West  was  completed. 
In  a  heated  controversy  between  Michael  Caerularius,  Patriarch 
of  Constantinople,  and  Pope  Leo  IX.,  there  were  mutual  allega¬ 
tions  of  heresy.  The  Latins,  in  addition  to  the  customary  accu¬ 
sations,  were  censured  for  using  unleavened  bread  in  the  sacrament 
and  for  eating  things  strangled.  The  Patriarch  broke  off  all 
intercourse  with  the  Papal  legates  at  Constantinople,  and  on  July 
1 6th,  1054,  the  legates  laid  on  the  altar  of  St.  Sophia  the  Pope’s 
bull,  excommunicating  him  and  charging  him  with  all  sorts  of 


202 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


heresies.  Repeated  efforts  at  reunion,  which  were  kept  up  after 
the  time  of  the  Latin  rule  in  Constantinople,  proved  abortive. 
The  same  result  befell  the  negotiations  at  the  Council  at  Florence 
(1439).  The  agreement  there,  couched  in  terms  not  free  from 
ambiguity,  led  to  no  practical  effect  and  was  formally  and  solemnly 
revoked  at  a  synod  in  Constantinople  in  1472. 

In  the  eighth  and  ninth  centuries,  a  number  of  the  Emperors 
of  the  Macedonian  dynasty  lent  a  cordial  encouragement  to 
studies  in  classical  as  well  as  ecclesiastical  literature.  Leo  VI. 
(886-912)  was  himself  an  author.  The  most  conspicuous  writer 
in  this  period  was  Photius.  His  Myriobiblion 1  is  made  up  of 
excerpts,  with  summaries,  abridgments  and  occasional  critical 
estimates,  from  two  hundred  and  seventy-nine  authors,  heathen 
and  Christian.  Not  less  than  eighty  of  them  are  otherwise  not 
known  to  us.  This  is  the  principal  work  of  Photius,  although  his 
polemical  and  other  writings  are  not  without  value. 

Dualism  was  revived  and  propagated  in  the  sect  of  the  Pauli- 
cians,  who  arose  about  the  middle  of  the  seventh  century.  They 
were  called  Manichaeans  by  the  church  writers,  but  their  creed 
was  more  allied  to  the  principles  of  Marcion.  In  Mananalis,2 
near  Samosata,  where  there  was  probably  a  Marcionite  society, 
one  Constantine,  a  member  of  it,  blended  teachings  of  St.  Paul, 
in  which  he  was  deeply  interested,  with  his  own  previous  tenets, 
and  became  the  leader  of  the  new  sect.  The  Paulicians  held  that 
the  Demiurge,  the  Evil  Being,  is  the  lord  of  the  present  world, 
that  Christ  is  sent  from  the  Heavenly  Father  to  deliver  man  from 
the  body  and  the  world  of  sense.  The  Sacraments  were  dis¬ 
carded.  The  Paulicians  were  ascetic,  but  did  not  abjure  marriage. 
It  is  not  certain  that  they  received  any  Gospels  except  Luke  or 
any  Epistles  except  those  of  St.  Paul,3  together  with  an  Epistle  to 
the  Laodiceans,  which  they  professed  to  have.  Although  victims 
of  severe  persecution,  they  still  became  numerous,  and  continued 
long  to  make  proselytes.  The  Paulicians  divided  into  different 
branches,  each  having  peculiar  opinions  of  its  own.  Their  influ¬ 
ence  in  the  formation  of  European  sects  may  have  been  exag¬ 
gerated.4  In  the  eleventh  century,  in  Thrace  there  was  a  numerous 

1  Or  flL(3\i.odriKT). 

2  The  correctness  of  this  designation  of  place  is  doubted  by  Ter.  Mkrttschian, 

Die  Paulikianer  etc.  ( I S93) ,  p.  124. 

3  Ibid.  p.  10S. 


4  Ibid.  p.  127. 


MEDIAEVAL  THEOLOGY 


203 


sect  called  the  Euchites,  who  were  enthusiasts  like  the  ancient 
monastic  sect  of  that  name,  but  also  Dualists.  Akin  to  them  in 
their  opinions  were  the  Bogomiles,  a  name  signifying  “  Friends 
of  God.”  At  the  beginning  of  the  twelfth  century,  their  leader, 
Basilius,  a  physician,  was  burned  to  death,  in  the  Hippodrome, 
at  Constantinople. 

The  conversion  of  the  Franks  to  orthodox  Christianity,  their 
ascendency  over  the  other  Arian  peoples,  and  the  spread  of  their 
dominion,  their  alliance  with  the  Papacy,  the  organization  of 
Empire  in  the  West  under  Charlemagne,  and  the  check  put  upon 
anarchy  and  illiteracy  —  which  was  of  great  moment,  even  though 
it  was  partial  and  was  followed  by  the  influence  of  reactionary 
forces  —  these  are  facts  of  capital  importance  in  European 
history. 

In  the  early  portion  of  the  Middle  Ages,  in  the  absence  of  orig¬ 
inal  authorship,  compilations  were  made  from  the  Fathers.  For 
a  time  there  was  more  theological  life  in  Spain  than  elsewhere. 
The  Sentences  of  Isidore  of  Seville  (who  died  in  636)  were 
composed  mostly  of  extracts  from  Augustine  and  Gregory  the 
Great.  This  work  retained  its  popularity  in  the  mediaeval  period. 
In  the  eighth  century  there  was  more  culture  in  England  than  in 
any  other  country  except  Italy.  Theodore  of  Tarsus,  the  first 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury  (668-690),  in  connection  with  the 
Abbot  Hadrian,  established  schools  in  which  Greek  was  taught. 
From  the  cloister  of  Yarrow  went  forth  the  venerable  Bede,  who 
wrote  on  all  the  subjects  then  studied.  He  was  famous  for  his 
learning  throughout  the  West.  Bede  composed  an  Ecclesiastical 
History  of  the  English.  In  782,  Alcuin,  an  Englishman,  who  had 
been  educated  at  York,  became  the  head  of  the  domestic  school 
of  Charlemagne  which  followed  his  migratory  court.  Alcuin  was 
well  read  in  the  classical  poets,  was  an  effective  promoter  of  learn¬ 
ing,  and  an  influential  writer.  Great  credit  belongs  to  him  for 
his  agency  in  founding  the  cathedral  and  cloister  schools.  In 
them  was  imparted  the  learning  of  the  age,  which  was  all  com¬ 
prised  in  the  seven  sciences,  the  trivium  and  quadrivium.  The 
spirit  of  the  Frankish  theologians  was  comparatively  free  and 
enlightened.  They  opposed  the  use  of  pictures  save  for  purposes 
of  decoration  and  instruction.  Agobard,  Bishop  of  Lyons  (who 
died  in  841),  was  prominent  in  the  defence  of  this  position.  He 
also  contended  against  a  rigid  theory  of  verbal  inspiration.  Among 


204 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


his  writings  is  a  polemical  book  against  Judaism.  Judaism  and 
Mohammedanism  were  objects  of  attack  in  this  period,  they  being 
the  two  forms  of  false  doctrine  outside  of  the  Church.  Under 
Charles  the  Bald,  Rabanus  Maurus,  Paschasius  Radbert,  Ratramnus 
and  Hincmar,  Archbishop  of  Rheims,  were  conspicuous  theolo¬ 
gians.  To  these  is  to  be  added  the  name  of  John  Scotus  called 
“  Erigena,”  which  means  probably  “born  in  the  Isle  of  Saints,” 
a  frequent  designation  of  Ireland,  which  was  also  often  called 
Major  Scotia.  The  system  of  Scotus  was  unique  in  its  character. 
It  is  an  episode  in  the  theological  records  of  his  time,  where  his 
very  existence  almost  seems  an  anachronism. 

Shortly  before  the  middle  of  the  ninth  century,  Scotus  took  up 
his  abode  at  the  court  of  Charles  the  Bald.  The  New  Platonism 
in  Augustine’s  writings  had  its  influence  upon  him,  and  still  more 
the  works  of  Maximus  the  confessor,  and  those  of  Pseudo- 
Dionysius,  which  he  translated  from  the  Greek.  He  repro¬ 
duced  in  a  free  way  speculations  which  were  Pantheistic  in  their 
essential  character.  So  peculiar  were  they  that,  although  he 
incurred  suspicion  and  some  opposition,  their  real  import  was 
not  discerned  until  long  after  his  death.  Like  Pseudo-Dionysius, 
he  drew  a  line  between  popular  and  scientific  theology.  True 
Philosophy  —  vera  philosophia  —  and  true  Theology  —  vera  theo- 
logia  —  are  identical.  Faith,  which  rests  on  authority,  belongs 
to  the  earlier  stage  of  the  intellectual  life.  Reason  discerns 
things  in  their  necessary  grounds  and  relations.  The  universe  is 
the  unfolding  of  the  absolute  God.  Respecting  Him  all  our 
affirmations  are  the  language  of  appearance.1  They  are  unavoid¬ 
able,  yet  are  accommodated  to  human  weakness.  Even  love  is 
to  be  predicated  of  God  in  only  a  symbolical  way.  All  existence 
is  only  a  theophany.  God  reaches  self-consciousness  in  man.  In 
his  principal  work  on  the  Division  of  Nature ,  His  scheme  of 
the  Universe  is  set  forth.  The  Absolute  is  made  to  run  through 
a  cycle.  Archetypal  ideas  are  embodied  in  visible  existences, 
and  there  follows  a  reversion  to  the  original  essence.  In  truth, 
conceptions  are  the  things  themselves — “ipsa  res.”  Material 
things  have  only  a  semblance  of  reality.  In  the  character  of 
his  mind,  as  well  as  the  drift  of  his  system,  Scotus  anticipates 
modern  thinkers  whose  creed  is  an  ideal  Pantheism. 

1  The  nature  of  God  is  “  superessentialis.”  See,  e.g.,  De  Div.  Nat.  L.  I. 
76.  (Migne,  p.  522.) 


CHAPTER  II 


FROM  CHARLEMAGNE  TO  THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  SCHOLASTICISM  —  THE 
ADOPTION  CONTROVERSY  —  GOTTSCHALK’S  DOCTRINE  OF  PREDESTI¬ 
NATION - RADBERT’S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  LORD’S  SUPPER - THE 

PENITENTIAL  SYSTEM  - THE  TENTH  CENTURY - CONTROVERSY  OF 

BERENGARIUS  AND  LANFRANC  ON  THE  LORD’S  SUPPER 

The  revived  theological  activity  and  culture  in  the  age  of 
Charlemagne  were  manifest  in  several  theological  controversies. 
The  first  was  the  Adoption  Controversy.  About  the  year  780, 
Elipandus,  Bishop  of  Toledo,  in  Spain,  was  attacked  for  teaching 
that,  as  man,  Christ  was  the  adopted  Son  of  God.1  He  was 
defended  by  Felix,  Bishop  of  Urgellis.  The  language  of  the 
Adoptionists  did  not  depart  essentially  from  that  of  Augustine. 
The  same  thing  was  said  even  in  the  Mozarabic  Liturgy.  The 
Cyrillian  interpretation  of  the  Chalcedon  creed,  which  had  been 
set  forth  under  Justinian  by  the  Fifth  General  Council,  although 
the  decision  of  the  Sixth  General  Council  on  the  Monothelite 
question  was  of  an  opposite  tenor,  was  prevalent  in  the  Spanish 
Kingdom  in  consequence  of  its  union  with  Rome.  Leading 
Frankish  theologians,  of  whom  Alcuin  was  the  most  conspicuous, 
combated  Adoptionism,  which  they  identified  with  Nestorian 
doctrine.2  It  was  condemned  in  three  Frankish  synods,  the  first 
at  Regensburg  in  792,  the  second  at  Frankfort  in  794,  and  the 
third  at  Aix  in  799. 

The  doctrine  of  the  procession  of  the  Spirit  from  the  Father 
and  the_  Son  was  defended  by  Alcuin  and  others,  and  as  early  as 
the  beginning  of  the  eleventh  century  was  included  in  the  form  of 

1  “  Jesum  Christum  adoptivum  humanitate  et  nequaquam  adoptivum  divin- 
itate”  —  Symbol  of  Elipandus,  in  Epist.  ad  Elipand.  (Migne,  96,  p.  917.) 

2  “  Sicut  Nestoriana  impietas  in  duas  Christi  personas  dividit,”  etc.  Alcuin 
adv.  Felic.  I.  11.  (Migne,  ioi,  p.  136.) 

205 


206 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


the  Nicene  Symbol  in  use  at  Rome.  Still  more  was  the  Western 
Church  distinguished  by  its  use  of  the  Apostles’  Creed  and  the 
Athanasian  Creed,  both  of  which  were  unknown  in  the  East. 

A  second  controversy  related  to  a  central  point  of  Augustinism. 
In  opposition  to  Semi- Pelagian  opinions.  Gottschalk.  a  pious  and 
learned  monk  of  Orbais,  in  the  province  of  Rheims,  propounded 
the  Augustinian  doctrine.  His  principal  adversaries  were  Raba- 
nus  Maurus  and  Archbishop  Hincmar.  Gottschalk’s  doctrine,  as 
defined  by  himself,  did  not  go  beyond  that  of  Augustine ;  for, 
while  he  taught  a  double  predestination,1  the  predestination  of 
the  wicked  was  not  to  sin,  as  he  was  erroneously  charged  with 
holding,  but  to  punishment.2  Augustine  had  designated  the 
wicked  as  ; reprobi .  The  opponents  of  Gottschalk  founded  the 
election  of  the  saved  on  the  divine  prescience  of  their  right  use  of 
the  gifts  of  grace,  although  in  the  Second  Council  of  Chiersy,  in 
853,  they  affirmed  inconsistently  that  “  in  the  first  man  we  lost  our 
freedom  of  will.”  It  is  evident  that  for  the  sake  of  maintaining  the 
efficacy  of  the  sacraments  they  preferred  to  modify  in  a  Semi- 
Pelagian  way  the  Augustinian  doctrine  of  unconditional  election, 
without  appreciating,  perhaps,  the  extent  of  their  deviation  from  it. 
It  is  evident,  also,  that  the  inference  of  Gottschalk  that  Christ  died 
only  for  the  elect,  was  specially  repugnant  to  their  views.  They 
affirmed  in  the  “  Four  Chapters  ”  adopted  at  Chiersy,  that  “  Christ 
died  for  all  men  ”  and  that  God  desires  all  men,  without  exception 
to  be  saved.'5  They  referred  in  support  of  this  opinion  to  1  Tim. 
ii.  4,  a  passage  to  which  Augustine  himself  attached  a  different  and 
restricted  meaning.  At  the  first  Synod  of  Chiersy  in  849,  Gottschalk 
was  condemned  and,  after  being  cruelly  scourged,  was  imprisoned 
for  life  in  a  cloister.  Among  those  who  took  ground  against  him  was 
John  Scotus,  whose  arguments,  however,  rested  on  the  Pantheistic 
ideas  at  the  root  of  his  theology.  The  very  term  ‘/^destination,’ 
Scotus  said,  was  a  part  of  the  language  of  appearance,  having  in 

1  “  gemina  predestinatio.” 

2  Of  reprobate  man,  his  language  in  his  first  confession  composed  in  prison, 
is :  “  propter  prasscita  certissime  ipsorum  propria  futura  mala  merita  praedes- 
tinasse  pariter  per  justissimum  judicium  suum  in  mortem  merito  sempiternam.” 
(Migne,  121,  p.  347O 

3  “  Deus  omnes  homines  sine  exceptione  vult  salvos  fieri.”  (Mansi,  XIV. 
p.  921.)  The  sentence  ends:  “licet  non  omnes  salventur.”  As  Christ 
assumed  the  nature  of  every  man,  there  is  no  man  for  whom  He  did  not 
die.  ( Ibid IV.) 


MEDI/EVAL  THEOLOGY 


207 


its  literal  sense  no  reality.1  Against  Hincmar  there  arose  many 
defenders  of  the  Augustinian  teaching,  including  Prudentius  of 
Troyes,  Ratramnus,  monk  at  Corbie,  Servatus  Lupus,  Abbot  at 
Ferrieres,  and  Remigius  of  Lyons.  Political  causes  had  their 
influence  in  bringing  to  pass  a  union  of  bishops  in  a  compromise 
at  the  two  synods  of  Savonieres  (in  859)  and  Toucy  (in  860). 2 
To  hold  fast  the  efficacy  of  the  sacrament  of  Baptism  was  the 
intent  of  all.  Practically  the  victory  was  on  the  side  of  Hincmar, 
for  the  Semi- Pelagian  principle  had  a  prevailing  acceptance, 
despite  the  consentaneous  profession  of  loyalty  to  the  teaching 
of  Augustine. 

A  discussion  respecting  the  Lord’s  Supper  began  in  844,  when 
Paschasius  P adhe*fc.  propounded  the  bald  doctrine  of  transub- 
stantiation.  He  taught  that  the  bread  and  the  wine,  as  far  as 
color  and  taste  are  concerned,  remain.  If  they  did  not,  there 
would  be  no  room  for  faith.  But  within  they  are  changed,  as 
to  their  substance,  into  the  body  and  blood  of  Christ,  —  even 
the  same  body  in  which  He  suffered  and  was  crucified.3  Dissent 
from  the  views  of  Radbert  was  expressed  by  Rabanus  Maurus 
and  by  Ratramnus.  The  latter  wrote  on  the  subject  in  reply  to 
the  question  of  Charles  the  Bald  whether  the  body  and  blood 
of  the  Lord  are  actually  received  or  not,  in  the  mouth  of  believ¬ 
ing  communicants.  The  answer  of  Ratramnus  is  not  in  all 
respects  lucid.  He  distinctly  denies  that  the  body  and  blood 
which  are  in  the  sacrament  after  the  consecration  are  identical 
with  the  slain  and  risen  Jesus.4  Rather  is  the  body  that  is 
received  the  memorial  of  that  body.  It  is  the  spiritual  body 
and  spiritual  blood  which  exists  under  the  veil  of  the  material 
bread  and  the  material  wine.5  The  Spirit  of  Christ,  the  power 
of  the  divine  Word  or  Logos  “  is  the  invisible  bread.”  The 
leading  idea  appears,  therefore,  to  be  that  of  Augustine ;  and 

1  Neither  prescience  nor  predestination  can  be  predicated  of  God,  “  cui 
nihil  futurum,  quia  nihil  expectat,  nihil  praeteritum,  quia  nihil  ei  transeat.  ” 
De  Div.  Prczdest.  (Migne,  122,  p.  392.) 

2  Mansi,  XV.  563  sq. 

8  De  Corp.  et  Sanguin.  Domini ,  7 .2.  “  Substantia  panis  et  vini  in  Christi 

carnetn  et  sanguinem  efficaciter  interius  commutatur.”  8.  2.  (Migne,  120, 
p.  1287.) 

4  Ibid.  c.  71.  (Migne,  121,  p.  156.) 

5  “  quoniani  sub  velamento  corporei  panis  et  vini  spiritualiter  corpus  et 
sanguis  Christi  existunt.”  c.  16,  p.  134. 


208 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


the  divine  element  in  the  Sacrament  is  compared  to  that  which 
is  imparted  to  the  baptismal  water.  Yet  Ratramnus  uses  language 
drawn  from  the  liturgy,  which,  taken  by  itself,  would  imply  a  more 
radical  objective  transformation,  and  what  precisely  is  received 
by  the  non-believer  in  taking  the  Sacrament  is  not  satisfactorily 
defined.  Thenceforward,  more  and  more  the  impression  made 
by  the  constant  repetition  of  the  mass,  the  central  act  of  worship, 
established  in  the  minds  of  the  people  the  belief  in  the  literal, 
objective  miracle.  This  was  confirmed  by  alleged  miracles  of 
the  host  transformed  into  a  lamb  —  an  argument  which  Radbert 
brought  forward.  Hence  the  Sacrament  was  regarded  as  the 
renewal  of  the  sacrifice  on  the  cross.  A  doctrinal  basis  was 
furnished  for  masses  when  no  communicants  were  present,  and 
for  masses,  said  in  private,  for  the  benefit  of  departed  souls. 

The  course  of  Christian  teaching  cannot  be  understood  without 
attention  to  the  elaborate  penitential  system  which  grew  up,  and 
advanced  from  one  stage  to  another,  in  the  Western  Church.  A 
network  of  law  came  by  degrees  to  be  stretched,  not  only  over  the 
conduct,  but,  also,  over  the  inward  thoughts  and  purposes  of  the 
people,  all  of  whom,  from  the  youngest  to  the  oldest  and  from 
the  highest  to  the  lowest,  were  subject  to  ecclesiastical  rule  and 
supervision.  A  code  of  penalties,  first  for  outward  transgression, 
then  for  sins  of  the  heart  as  well,  was  administered  by  the  priest¬ 
hood,  with  the  cooperation,  when  it  was  needed,  of  secular  author¬ 
ity.  In  the  Sends  in  the  Frankish  Church,  the  visitations  of  the 
Bishops,  private  confession  came  to  be  associated  with  the  public 
acknowledgment  of  grave  offences.  That  personal  dealing  with 
the  conscience  and  allotting  of  penances  which  were  customary 
in  the  monasteries  spread  beyond  their  walls  and  into  dealings 
with  the  laity.  Disciplinary  penalties  were  appointed  for  the  sins 
reckoned  as  mortal.  The  origin  of  rules  in  detail  for  the  penal 
treatment  of  penitents  was  attributed  to  the  Irish  Cloisters  and 
to  Theodore,  the  Saxon  Archbishop  of  Canterbury.  Among  the 
Teutonic  nations  respect  was  necessarily  had  to  their  ingrained 
feelings  and  legal  customs.  Penances  had  to  be  modified.  The 
Germanic  peoples  were  accustomed  to  the  payment  of  money  as 
a  composition  for  even  the  gravest  crimes.  Certain  exceptional 
cases  were,  therefore,  recognized,  in  which  the  usual  penance 
could  be  commuted  to  a  pecuniary  fine.  Out  of  this  simple 
beginning  grew  the  system  of  indulgences.  Substitutionary  en- 


MEDIAEVAL  THEOLOGY 


209 


durance  of  penance  had  likewise  its  familiar  analogies  in  German 
law,  although  it  likewise  had  support  in  the  vicarious  offices  as¬ 
signed  of  old  to  the  Saints.  If  the  penitential  system  which  grew 
up  among  the  new  nations  under  the  tutelage  of  the  Church  was 
adapted  to  impress  the  conscience  with  the  guilt  of  sin,  it  was  at 
the  same  time  fitted  to  foster  as  a  dominant  feeling  the  desire  to 
be  set  free  from  its  penalties.  Side  by  side  with  the  government 
of  the  state  was  a  spiritual  government,  weighing  the  merits  and 
demerits  of  all,  and  as  the  agent  of  the  Almighty,  meting  out  pun¬ 
ishments  or  dispensations  of  grace.  The  very  word  “ penitence” 
( pcenitentia )  was  translated  by  a  word  (Busse)  which  meant  a 
compensation  or  a  fine.  The  equivalent  for  “  to  repent  ”  (fice- 
nitere)  in  the  penitential  rules  was  “to  fast”  ( jejunare ). 

The  tenth  century  was  the  dark  age  in  mediaeval  history.  The 
early  portion  of  the  eleventh  century  was  of  a  piece  with  it.  To¬ 
gether  they  made  up  a  period  of  barbarism.  The  light  that  had 
been  kindled  under  the  auspices  of  Charlemagne  was  well-nigh 
extinguished.  This  was  owing  to  a  combination  of  causes :  to 
the  breaking-up  of  the  Carolingian  Empire,  and  the  tumults  and 
anarchy  that  ensued,  and  the  utter  demoralization  of  the  papacy 
through  the  conflicts  of  unbridled  Italian  factions,  the  disappear¬ 
ance  of  the  Latin  from  the  speech  of  the  people  and  the  interval 
that  elapsed  prior  to  the  reduction  of  the  new  Romanic  tongues  to 
unity,  and  the  utter  decay  of  the  schools  where  alone  Latin  could 
be  learned.  In  the  eleventh  century,  the  skies  gradually  became 
more  propitious.  The  Hildebrandian  movement  of  reform,  as  it 
grew  in  strength,  by  restoring  order  and  discipline  in  the  Church, 
aided  the  cause  of  learning.  Intercourse  with  the  Greek  Empire, 
where  learning  was  still  cherished,  was  reopened.  Intercourse 
sprang  up  with  the  Arabians  in  Spain,  among  whom  the  sciences 
were  cultivated.  The  Arabs,  having  been  initiated  in  the  knowl¬ 
edge  of  Greek  learning  by  Christians  in  Syria,  established  in  the 
East  celebrated  schools,  especially  at  Bagdad  and  Damascus.  In 
Spain,  in  980,  they  founded  a  college  at  Cordova.  The  favorite 
studies  were  mathematics,  astronomy,  and  medicine.  A  lively 
interest  grew  up  in  the  Spanish  Arabian  schools  in  the  study  of 
Aristotle  and  in  philosophical  inquiries  to  which  it  led.  In  the 
middle  of  the  tenth  century,  Gerbert,  who  became  Archbishop  of 
Rheims  and  then  Pope  (Sylvester  II.),  is  said  to  have  brought  back 
from  Seville  and  Cordova  scientific  acquisitions  which  excited 


210 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


astonishment.  By  him  the  school  at  Rheims  had  a  new  spirit 
infused  into  it,  and  made  its  influence  widely  felt  in  other  similar 
schools.  The  school  at  Chartres  became  quite  famous  through 
the  exertions  of  Bishop  Fulbert  (who  died  in  1028).  '  A  zeal  for 
the  study  of  jurisprudence  was  awakened  in  the  cities  of  Lom¬ 
bardy.  One  sign  of  the  revival  of  intellectual  activity  was  the 
renewal  of  the  controversies  with  the  Greek  Church.  In  the  first 
half  of  the  eleventh  century  the  schools  of  Rheims  and  Chartres 
stood  in  the  front  rank.  Later  in  the  century,  the  school  at  Tours 
and  the  school  in  the  cloister  of  Bee  in  Normandy  rose  to  great 
celebrity.  Bee  had  for  its  prior  Lanfranc,  an  Italian  of  noble 
birth,  who  had  turned  from  legal  studies  to  theology  and  eventually 
became  Archbishop  of  Canterbury.  At  the  head  of  the  school  of 
Tours  was  Berengarius,  a  man  of  uncommon  parts.  He  had  been 
a  pupil  of  Fulbert  of  Chartres.  In  1050,  in  a  controversy  on  the 
Lord’s  Supper,  these  theologians  employed  the  Aristotelian  dia¬ 
lectic.  This  circumstance  serves  as  a  landmark  for  the  beginning 
of  the  scholastic  era. 

I^erengarius  in  a  letter  to  Lanfranc  opposed  the  doctrine  of  a 
literal  change  of  the  elements  into  the  body  and  blood  of  Christ. 
This  view,  together  with  the  idea  of  such  a  change  of  substance  as 
does  not  affect  the  qualities  or  accidents  he  combated  with  logical 
weapons.  The  opinion  which  he  constantly  maintained,  except 
when  he  was  coerced  into  a  denial  of  it,  was  that  the  change  in  the 
elements  is  dynamic,  and  of  such  a  character  that  Christ  is  actually 
received  only  by  the  believer.  He  went  even  farther  than  Ratramnus 
in  the  direction  of  a  spiritual  conception  of  the  Sacrament.  Lan¬ 
franc  contended  for  the  doctrine  of  Radbert.  In  1050,  Berengarius 
was  condemned,  unheard,  by  Pope  Leo  IX.,  and,  also,  by  a  Synod 
at  Vercelli.  In  1059,  at  Rome,  he  was  driven  to  retract  his  opinion, 
and  to  subscribe  to  statements  drawn  up  by  Cardinal  Humbert, 
that  the  body  and  blood  of  Christ,  after  the  consecration,  are  in 
the  hands  of  the  priest,  and  are  eaten  with  the  teeth  of  the  faithful.1 
But  he  afterwards  reasserted  his  real  opinion,  and  Gregory  VII.,  by 
whom  he  had  been  shielded  and  who  regarded  him  at  least  with 
personal  favor,  could  not  stand  in  the  way  of  his  condemnation 
once  more  at  a  Synod  at  Rome  at  Easter  in  1079.  Lanfranc 
had  gone  beyond  Radbert  in  distinctly  affirming  that  the  real  flesh 
and  blood  of  Christ  are  received,  although  without  beneficial  effect, 

1  In  Lanfranc,  De  Corp.  et  Sanguine  Dom.  (Migne,  150,  p.  41 1.) 


MEDIAEVAL  THEOLOGY 


21  I 


by  unbelievers  and  the  unworthy.  Others,  especially  Guitmund 
von  Aversa,  modified  the  traditional  view  by  teaching  that  the 
entire  Christ,  and  not  merely  a  part  of  Him,  is  in  every  portion  of 
the  bread  and  wine.1  Anselm  added  that  the  whole  Christ,  God 
and  man,  is  received  when  the  bread  is  received  and  likewise  when 
the  wine  is  received.2  The  first  known  use  of  the  word  “  transub¬ 
stantiate  ”  was  by  Hildebert,  Archbishop  of  Tours  (who  died  in 

11 34)- 

1  It  is  like  the  manna  which  fell  from  heaven :  “  Tota  hostia  est  corpus 
Christi,  ut  nihilominus  unaquceque  particula  separata  sit  totum  corpus  Christi.” 
Guitmund,  De  Corp.  et  Sanguin.  Christ.  (Migne,  149,  p.  1434.) 

2  Yet  “non  tamen  bis  sed  semel  Christum  accipiinus.”  Anselm,  Epp.  L. 
IV.  107.  (Migne,  159,  p.  255.)  Cf.  Loofs,  Leitfaden,  p.  270. 


CHAPTER  III 


CHARACTERISTICS  OF  SCHOLASTICISM  —  THE  SCHOLASTIC  MAXIM - 

PHILOSOPHY  :  NOMINALISM  AND  REALISM - SCHOLASTICISM  AND 

THE  UNIVERSITIES - THE  METHOD  OF  SCHOLASTICISM 

Scholasticism  was  an  application  of  reason  to  theology,  not  in 
order  to  revise  the  creed  or  to  explore  for  new  truth,  but  to  system¬ 
atize  and  prove  the  existing  traditional  beliefs.  It  differed  thus, 
in  having  a  larger  aim,  from  theology  in  the  pre-scholastic  period. 
In  the  patristic  age,  the  authority  of  tradition  and  of  the  Church 
was  recognized.  But  the  area  of  dogma  was  more  contracted. 
There  was  a  larger  margin  for  original  inquiry.  If  in  the  Middle 
Ages  there  were  no  teachers  to  equal  in  breadth  and  in  their  contri¬ 
butions  to  the  stock  of  religious  thought  Origen  and  Augustine, 
yet  within  their  restricted  bounds  no  abler  men  have  ever  culti¬ 
vated  theology  than  Anselm,  Aquinas  and  some  other  mediaeval 
doctors. 

The  Schoolmen  followed  Augustine  in  their  maxim  that  faith  is 
to  seek  for  knowledge  :  “ fide s  qucerit  intellectual There  is  an 
innate  and  laudable  desire  of  the  understanding  to  justify  to  itself 
what  the  heart  immediately  appropriates  through  its  own  experi¬ 
ence  and  on  the  ground  of  authority.  The  fundamental  maxim 
was  received  generally,  even  by  the  boldest  thinkers,  such  as  Abe¬ 
lard,  who  distinguished  faith  from  science,  and  recognized  the  dif¬ 
ferences  of  natural  capacity  in  relation  to  science.  The  Schoolmen, 
great  as  were  their  achievements  in  their  own  chosen  path,  were 
impeded  by  their  habit  of  including  in  the  domain  of  faith  the 
whole  field  of  the  Church’s  teaching.  Then  there  was  always  the 
question  how  far  reason  could  possibly  advance  in  its  task  of  show¬ 
ing  the  rationality  of  the  whole  sum  of  religious  beliefs.  In  striv¬ 
ing  to  reach  the  goal,  there  was  a  temptation  to  cast  aside  doctrines 
which  could  not  be  directly  verified  at  the  bar  of  reason,  to  get  rid 


MEDIAEVAL  THEOLOGY 


213 


of  irreducible  material  by  a  rationalizing  process.  As  far  as  a  fail¬ 
ure  had  to  be  confessed,  either  skepticism  would  be  likely  to  ensue, 
or  a  refuge  be  sought  in  the  arms  of  authority  and  under  the  veil 
of  mystery.  In  either  case,  Scholasticism  would  undermine  itself. 
This  proved  to  be  the  ultimate  fact.  All  along  we  notice  two 
rival  tendencies,  two  classes  of  theologians,  the  one  disposed  to 
magnify  the  ability  and  exalt  the  function  of  the  intellect  and  to 
make  less  of  the  indispensableness  of  authority ;  the  other  to  curb 
reason  and  to  insist  on  intuition  and  feeling  rather  than  logic  and 
on  the  voice  of  the  Church  as  the  basis  of  certitude.  The  theory, 
as  expressed  by  Anselm,  was  that  philosophy  is  the  handmaid 
( ancilla )  of  theolog^T^  But  the  servant  will  sometimes  gain  an 
ascendency  over  the  mistress,  or  the  mistress  dominate  the  ser¬ 
vant  to  such  an  extent  as  to  repress  all  freedom  of  action. 

As  regards  philosophical  doctrine,  the  empire  in  the  Scholastic 
period  was  divided  between  Plato  and  Aristotle.  Aristotle  came 
to  be  enthroned  in  the  seat  of  authority,  but  Plato,  through  the 
.writings  of  Augustine  and  the  works  of  Pseudo-Dionysius,  had  a 
larger  share  than  is  commonly  supposed  in  shaping  theological 
thought.  Aristotle  was  first  known  through  the  translations  of 
Boethius  ;  later  through  Latin  versions  of  Arabian  translations,  and 
finally  through  his  original  writings  brought  from  the  East.  For 
a  long  time  the  influence  of  the  Stagyrite  was  formal,  through  his 
logic.  Afterwards  it  affected  the  matter  of  theology  and  ethics. 
The  Schoolmen  of  the  thirteenth  century  had  to  combat  a  subtle 
form  of  Pantheism,  springing  ultimately  from  New  Platonism,  a 
type  of  opinion  of  which  Amalric  of  Bena  and  David  of  Dinanto, 
teachers  at  Paris,  were  representatives.  But  Pantheism  in  a  more 
captivating  shape  was  involved  in  the  writings  of  Arabic  philoso¬ 
phers,  of  whom  the  ablest  was  Averroes,  who  died  in  1198.  A 
skeptical  spirit  infected  certain  Jewish  authors  in  Spain  who 
emulated  their  Arabic  neighbors  in  the  study  of  Aristotle  and  in 
rationalistic  speculations.  Moses  Maimonides  (1135-1204)  was 
the  most  famous  of  these  writers. 

The  great  philosophical  problem  of  the  Middle  Ages  was  that 
of  Nominalism  and  Realism.  It  is  an  exaggeration,  however, 
when  Cousin  says  of  the  Schoolmen  that,  apart  from  theology, 
their  “philosophy  is  all  embraced”  in  this  dispute.  Some  of  the 
leading  Schoolmen  paid  but  little  attention  to  this  question.  The 
incentive  to  the  discussion  came  from  a  passage  in  Boethius’s 


214 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


Latin  translation  of  a  passage  in  Porphyry’s  “  Introduction  ”  to 
Aristotle,  where  the  question  is  stated  without  being  solved.  Under 
each  of  the  two  theories,  there  were  various  shades  of  opinion ; 
according  to  John  of  Salisbury  not  less  than  thirteen.1  The  two 
main  forms  were  the  Platonic  tenet  of  the  existence  of  universals, 
or  concepts,  prior  to  the  concrete  things  in  which  they  are  embod¬ 
ied,  or  ante  rem.  That  is,  the  genus  is  real  and  is  identical  in  all 
the  individuals  comprising  it.  Such  was  the  contention  of  William 
of  Champeaux.  The  other  main  form  of  Realism  was  the  Aristote¬ 
lian  tenet  of  existence  in  re,  which  made  the  genus  inherent  in  the 
individuals,  but  not  existing  prior  to  them  or  independently  of 
them  and  not  numerically  the  same  in  them.  Nominalism 
was  the  Stoic  doctrine  that  universals  are  abstractions  of  the 
understanding,  with  no  objective  reality,  being  merely  common 
names  attached  to  individuals  having  like  qualities.  The  inter¬ 
mediate  doctrine  of  Conceptualism  was  the  creed  of  some,  of 
whom  Abelard  was  one.  There  were  questions  of  vital  moment 
closely  connected  with  this  controversy,  such  as  the  objective 
reality  of  human  thought  and  knowledge,  the  relative  claims  of 
Empiricism  and  Idealism.  It  had  an  important  bearing  on  the¬ 
ological  doctrines,  such  as  the  doctrine  of  original  sin,  the  doctrine 
of  the  Trinity. 

The  spread  of  the  Scholastic  theology  was  greatly  promoted 
by  the  inculcation  of  it  in  the  universities.  About  the  beginning 
of  the  twelfth  century,  persons  began  to  teach  dialectics  and 
theology  in  the  vicinity  of  the  cloister  schools  in  Paris,  who 
gradually  formed  a  connection  with  one  another  and  with  the 
teachers  of  the  liberal  arts.  The  diversifying  and  expansion 
of  the  curriculum  of  the  schools  went  on,  and  in  the  course  of 
the  century,  the  university  grew  up  to  its  full  proportions,  and 
was  the  precursor  of  the  other  educational  establishments  of  the 
same  character  in  England  and  on  the  Continent.  Oxford  stood 
next  in  rank  to  Paris.  To  the  universities  where  the  new  theology 
was  taught  there  streamed  students,  inspired  with  ardent  curiosity, 
from  all  the  countries  of  Europe.  Their  number  has  been 
sometimes  exaggerated,  but  it  was  no  doubt  very  large. 

The  most  eminent  of  the  Schoolmen  belonged  to  one  or  the 
other  of  the  two  mendicant  orders,  the  Dominicans  and  the 
Franciscans,  each  of  whom,  not  without  strenuous  resistance, 

1  See  Prantl,  Gesch.  d.  Logik ,  II.  uS. 


MEDIAEVAL  THEOLOGY 


215 


which  was  kept  up,  or  renewed,  from  time  to  time,  secured  a 
chair  in  the  University  of  Paris.  There,  and  at  the  other  seats 
of  mediaeval  learning,  the  lectures  of  renowned  representatives  of 
these  orders  were  attended  by  throngs  of  eager  pupils. 

The  instrument  of  exposition,  the  weapon  of  assault  and  defence, 
was  the  syllogism.  The  ordinary  method  of  discussion,  which  is 
exemplified  in  the  principal  Scholastic  treatises,  was  to  state 
general  subjects,  which  are  resolved  into  subordinate  topics,  and 
the  ramification  is  carried  forward  until  it  is  considered  complete. 
Under  each  head,  questions  are  proposed,  each  question  being 
pluralized  by  analysis,  and  its  branches  severally  handled.  First, 
the  grounds  negative  of  the  thesis  are  set  down  in  order,  including 
passages  from  Augustine,  Aristotle,  and  other  authors.  Then 
follow  the  grounds  in  the  affirmative,  and,  in  the  last  place, 
the  writer  sums  up,  answering  the  objections  and  reconciling 
seeming  contradictions.  This  decision  or  opinion  was  termed 
by  the  editors  of  Aquinas  the  “  Conclusion.”  “  There  is  no 
conception,”  says  Baur,  “  so  subtle,  no  problem  so  difficult,  that 
the  Schoolmen  would  not  have  ventured  to  take  it  up,  with  con¬ 
fidence  in  the  omnipotence  of  dialectics.”  Everything  which  had 
any  connection  with  dogma  is  brought  in  and  scrutinized,  and 
with  most  fondness  those  aspects  of  doctrine  which  are  of  the 
most  interest  to  the  speculative  thinker,  —  the  being,  nature, 
attributes  of  God,  the  relations  between  the  persons  of  the  Holy 
Trinity,  the  relation  of  God  to  the  World,  of  the  finite  to  the 
infinite,  of  freedom  to  contingency,  and  so  forth.  The  whole 
ethical  material  is  likewise  worked  in.  It  is  the  great  drawback 
to  the  value  of  these  wonderful  feats  of  intellectual  acumen  that  it 
is  abstractions  and  logical  relations  that  are  dealt  with,  so  that 
Christianity  appears  to  lose,  so  to  speak,  its  flesh  and  blood,  and 
to  be  resolved  into  a  lifeless  structure  of  metaphysics. 


CHAPTER  IV 


SUBDIVISIONS  OF  THE  SCHOLASTIC  ERA  -  THE  FIRST  SECTION  : 

ANSELM ;  ABELARD  ;  BERNARD  ;  THE  SCHOOL  OF  ST.  VICTOR - 

THE  BOOKS  OF  SENTENCES - PETER  LOMBARD 

The  Scholastic  era  by  a  natural  division  falls  into  three  sections. 
The  first  is  the  introductory  period  of  the  rise  of  Scholasticism, 
and  may  be  said  to  terminate  with  Alexander  of  Hales,  the  first 
of  the  Schoolmen  to  work  out  a  complete  system  or  “  Sum  of 
Theology,”  making  use  not  only  of  the  Logic,  but  also  of  the 
other  works  —  the  Physics,  Metaphysics,  and  Ethics — of  Aris¬ 
totle.  The  second  section,  which  covers  pretty  nearly  the  thir¬ 
teenth  century,  was  the  flourishing  period  of  Scholasticism,  in 
which  appeared  almost  all  of  its  most  famous  representatives,  who 
were  generally  of  one  or  the  other  of  the  great  mendicant  orders. 
In  it  Nominalism,  which  had  prevailed  after  Anselm,  was  super¬ 
seded  by  Realism.  The  closing  section,  ending  at  the  Reforma¬ 
tion,  witnessed  the  revival  and  renewed  sway  of  Nominalism,  and 
is  marked  by  the  decadence  of  Scholasticism,  by  its  own  slow 
suicide  and  by  the  appearance  of  movements  in  the  direction  of 
theological  as  well  as  ecclesiastical  reform. 

In  the  first  section,  the  principal  names  are  Anselm,  Abelard, 
and  Bernard.  If  Scholasticism  was  introduced  by  Lanfranc  and 
Berengarius,  Anselm,  more  than  any  other,  is  entitled  to  be  called 
its  father.  In  him  the  two  elements,  the  devout  and  mystical  on 
the  one  hand,  and  the  scientific  and  speculative  on  the  other,  are 
evenly  balanced.  He  is  steadfast  in  adhering  to  his  maxim, 
“  Credo  ut  intelligam.”  1  “  I  desire,”  he  says,  “  to  understand 

Thy  truth  which  my  heart  believes  and  loves.  For  I  do  not  seek 
to  understand  that  I  may  believe,  but  I  believe  that  I  may  under¬ 
stand.  For  even  this  I  believe,  that  if  I  did  not  believe,  I  should 

1  Proslogium.  (Migne,  158,  p.  227.) 

216 


M  EDI /EVA  L  THEOLOGY 


217 


not  understand.”  Anselm  addressed  himself  to  the  discussion 
of  the  profoundest  questions  of  theology.  Roscellin,  a  canon  at 
Compiegne,  was  an  advocate  of  Nominalism.  The  issue  of  the 
application  of  his  doctrine  to  the  Trinity  was  Tritheism  ;  the  three 
divine  persons  being  held  to  be  one  generically  and  in  name  only. 
He  was  confuted  by  Anselm  and  recanted  at  the  Council  of 
Soissons  in  1092.  The  principal  productions  of  Anselm  are  his 
a  priori  argument  for  the  being  of  God  in  his  Monologium  and  in 
the  Proslogium,  and  an  epoch-making  treatise  on  the  Atonement, 
the  Cur  Deus  Homo.  Anselm’s  attempted  demonstration  of 
theism  in  the  Monologium  is  not  materially  different  from  the 
reasoning  of  Augustine.  All  specific  predicates,  even  existence, 
presuppose  an  absolute  being  in  whom  all  excellent  qualities  in 
their  generic,  absolute  perfection  are  embraced.  In  the  Pros¬ 
logium,  the  argument  was  reduced  to  a  simpler  form.  We 
necessarily  conceive  of  something  a  greater  than  which  cannot  be 
thought,1  i.e.,  God.  Thus  even  the  fool  who  says  that  there 
is  no  God  has  the  idea  of  God.  But  the  existence  of  the  idea 
carries  in  it  the  existence  of  the  reality  ;  otherwise,  a  greater 
than  the  greatest  conceivable  could  be  thought.  A  God  in  in- 
tellectu  is  less  than  a  God  who  is  likewise  in  re'}  To  the 
objection  of  the  monk  Gaunilo  —  who  replied  in  behalf  of  the 
fool  —  that  by  parallel  reasoning,  if  we  conceive  of  a  lost  island, 
the  most  beautiful  that  can  be  conceived,  we  must  infer  that  it 
exists,  Anselm  answers  that  his  reasoning  applies  only  to  that 
which  is  necessarily  conceived,  or  the  absolute,  and  not  to  arbitrary 
notions.  As  was  said  of  Augustine’s  argument,  the  argument  of 
Anselm  rests  on  the  presupposition  of  Realism. 

In  his  treatise  On  Original  Sin,  which  forms  a  kind  of  sequel  to 
the  Cur  Deus  Homo ,  Anselm  says,  in  agreement  with  the  Augus- 
tinian  doctrine,  that  when  Adam  and  Eve  sinned,  “  The  whole, 
which  they  were,  was  debilitated  and  corrupted  ”  :  not  only  the 
body,  but  through  the  body,  the  soul ;  and  “  because  the  whole 
human  nature  was  in  them,  and  outside  of  them  there  was  nothing 
of  it,  the  whole  was  weakened  and  corrupted.  There  remained, 
therefore,  in  that  nature  the  debt  of  complete  justice”  —  that  is, 
the  obligation  to  be  perfectly  righteous  —  “  which  it  received,  and 

1  “  Aliquid  quo  majus  nihil  cogitari  potest.”  c.  2.  (Migne,  15S,  p.  227.) 

2  “  Si  enim  vel  in  solo  intellectu  est,  potest  cogitari  esse  et  in  re  :  quod  majus 
est.”  c.  2.  (Migne,  Ibid.  p.  228.) 


2l8 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


the  obligation  to  make  satisfaction,  because  it  forsook  this  justice, 
together  with  the  very  corruption  which  sin  induced.  Hence,  as 
in  case  it  had  not  sinned,  it  would  be  propagated  just  as  it  was 
made  by  God ;  so,  after  sin,  it  would  be  propagated  just  as  it 
made  itself  by  sinning.”  Thus  it  follows  “that  this  nature  is  born 
in  infants  with  the  obligation  upon  it  to  satisfy  for  the  first  sin, 
which  it  always  could  have  avoided,  and  with  the  obligation  upon 
it  to  have  original  righteousness,  which  it  always  was  able  to  pre¬ 
serve.  Nor  does  impotence  excuse  it” — that  is,  this  nature  — 
“  even  in  infants,  since  in  them  it  does  not  render  what  it  owes, 
and  inasmuch  as  it  made  itself  what  it  is,  by  forsaking  righteous¬ 
ness  in  the  first  parents,  in  whom  it  was  as  a  whole  —  in  quibus 
tota  erat — and  it  is  always  bound  to  have  power  which  it  received 
to  the  end  that  it  might  continually  preserve  its  righteousness.”1 

That  sin  pertains  exclusively  to  the  rational  will  is  a  proposition 
which  Anselm  clearly  defines  and  maintains ;  and  on  this  branch 
of  the  subject  he  gives  to  the  Augustinian  theology  a  precision 
which  it  had  not  previously  attained.  Augustine  holds  that  native 
concupiscence,  or  the  disorder  and  inordinate  excitableness  of 
the  lower  appetites,  is  sinful ;  but  he  also  holds  it  to  be  voluntary, 
in  the  large  sense  of  the  term.  In  the  regenerate,  the  guilt 
( reatus )  of  concupiscence  is  pardoned  ;  but  the  principle  is  not 
extirpated.  It  does  not  bring  new  guilt,  however,  upon  the  soul, 
unless  its  impulses  are  complied  with,  or  consented  to,  by  the  will. 
To  these  opinions  the  strict  Augustinians  in  the  Catholic  Church 
have  adhered  ;  but,  laying  hold  of  that  distinction  between  con¬ 
cupiscence  and  the  voluntary  consent  to  it,  which  Augustine 
assumes  in  respect  to  the  baptized,  the  Semi- Pelagians,  as  they 
have  been  generally  styled  by  their  opponents,  have  affirmed  that 
native  concupiscence  is  not  itself  sinful,  but  only  becomes  such 
by  the  will’s  compliance  with  it.  At  the  first  view,  it  would  seem 
as  if  Anselm  adopted  this  theory,  and  so  far  deviated  from  Augus- 

Itine.  Anselm  declares  that  as  sin  belongs  to  the  will,  and  to  the 
will  alone,  no  individual  is  a  sinner  until  he  is  possessed  of  a  will, 
and  with  it  inwardly  consents  to  the  evil  desire.  “  The  appetites 
themselves,”  he  says,  “  are  neither  just  nor  unjust  in  themselves 

1  De  Concept.  Virg.  et  Orig.  Pec.  c.  ii.  (Migne,  158,  p.  435.)  Hence 
Anselm  held  to  the  universal  damnation  of  unbaptized  infants :  Peccatum  orig¬ 
inate  belongs  equally  to  them  all.  The  inference  is  that  “  omnes  qui  in  illo 
solo  moriuntur,  sequaliter  damnari.”  c.  27. 


MEDIAEVAL  THEOLOGY 


219 


considered.  They  do  not  make  a  man  just  or  unjust,  simply  be¬ 
cause  he  feels  them  within  him  ;  but  just  or  unjust,  only  as  he 
consents  to  them  with  the  will,  when  he  ought  not.”  The  animals 
have  these  appetites,  but  are  rendered  neither  holy  nor  unholy 
on  account  of  them.  “  Wherefore  there  is  no  injustice  (or  un¬ 
righteousness)  in  their  essence,  but  in  the  rational  will  following 
them.”1  This  certainly  sounds  like  an  altered  theology.  But 
we  find  that  Anselm  holds  fully  to  the  propagation  of  sin  through 
seminal  or  spermatic  corruption,  after  the  manner  of  Augustine. 
He  asserts,  as  we  have  seen,  the  existence  of  a  properly  sinful 
nature  which  is  transmitted  from  generation  to  generation.  His 
real  theory  would  appear  to  be,  that  a  wrongly  determined  will, 
or  a  will  already  determined  to  evil,  is  a  part  of  our  inheritance. 
But  he  sticks  to  his  sharply  defined  proposition  that  sin  is  predi¬ 
cable  of  the  will  alone  ;  and  hence  he  denies  that  spermatic  corrup¬ 
tion  is  sinful.  Sin  is  not  in  semine ,  but  simply  the  necessity  that 
there  shall  be  sin  when  the  individual  comes  to  exist  and  to  be 
possessed  of  a  rational  soul.2  This  whole  theory  turns  upon  the 
distinction  of  nature  and  person.  The  descendants  of  Adam  were 
not  in  him  as  individuals ;  yet  what  he  did  as  a  person  he  did 
not  do  sine  natura  ;  and  this  nature  is  ours' as  well  as  his.3  Thus, 
no  man  is  condemned  except  for  his  own  sin.  “  Therefore  when 
the  infant  is  condemned  for  original  sin,  he  is  condemned  not  for 
the  sin  of  Adam,  but  for  his  own.  For  if  he  had  not  sin  of  his 
own,  he  would  not  be  condemned.”  This  sin  originated  in  Adam, 
“  but  this  ground  which  lay  in  Adam  why  infants  are  born  sinners, 
is  not  in  other  parents,  since  in  them  human  nature  has  not  the 
power  that  righteous  children  should  be  propagated  from  it.”4 
This  matter  was  decided,  and  irreversibly  so  far  as  more  immedi¬ 
ate  parents  are  concerned,  in  Adam.  It  is  Anselm’s  opinion, 
we  may  add,  that  original  sin  in  infants  is  less  guilty  than  if  they 
had  personally  committed  the  first  sin,  as  Adam  did.  The  quan¬ 
tity  of  guilt  in  them  is  less.  In  this  he  does  not  differ  from  Au¬ 
gustine,  who  thought  that  the  perdition  of  infants  would  be  milder 
and  easier  to  bear  than  that  of  adult  sinners. 

In  the  Cur  Pens  Homo ,  Anselm  makes  the  need  of  an  Atone¬ 
ment  for  sin  the  ground  of  the  Incarnation.  As  obedience  is  the 
honor  which  man  owes  to  God,  disobedience  both  takes  from 


1  De  Concept.  Virg.  et  Orig.  Pec.  c.  iv. 

2  c.  7.  3  c.  23. 


(Migne,  Ibid.  pp.  437,  438.) 

4  c.  26. 


c.  23. 


220 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


God  what  belongs  to  Him  and  dishonors  Him.1  The  sinner  owes 
not  merely  a  restoration  of  what  was  taken,  but  also  satisfaction 
on  account  of  this  “contumely.”  Punishment  would  be  satis¬ 
faction.  “  God  would  be  acting  unjustly  if  he  let  the  sinner  go 
unpunished.”  2  Punishment  both  takes  in  turn  from  the  trans¬ 
gressor  what  was  his,  and  proves  that  he  and  his  are  subject  to 
God.  The  disobedient  one  himself  cannot  render  adequate  satis¬ 
faction.  He  cannot  do  this  by  means  of  contrition,  or  by  any 
other  or  all  forms  of  obedience ;  for  obedience  he  owes  for  the 
present.  It  does  not  make  good  the  past.  If  he  possessed  the 
whole  world  it  would  not,  if  offered  to  God,  counterbalance  a 
single  sin ;  for  even  to  gain  the  whole  world  one  ought  not  to 
commit  the  least  sin.  Yet  it  must  be  man,  he  being  the  trans- 
\  gressor,  who  makes  satisfaction.  Here  is  the  paradox :  man 
|  must ,  man  cannot?  Hence  the  necessity  for  the  Deus  Homo,  the 
s  God-man.  Obedience,  it  is  true,  is  a  debt  which  Christ  owes 
for  Himself,  but  to  the  giving  of  His  life,  since  He  is  sinless,  He  is 
not  bound.  Being  almighty,  He  can  deliver  Himself ;  being  guilt¬ 
less,  He  has  a  right  to.  Now  His  life  outweighs  the  evil  of  all  sin; 
for  one  would  choose  rather  to  commit  all  other  sins  than  to  do 
Him  the  slightest  injury.4  As  to  the  sin  of  putting  Him  to  death, 
it  is  not  excluded  from  the  possibility  of  pardon,  for  it  was  a  sin 
of  ignorance  (Luke  xxiii.  34).  But  how  can  Christ’s  gift  of  His 
life  to  God  conduce  to  our  advantage?  It  is  necessary  that  He 
who  makes  such  a  gift  to  God  should  be  rewarded.  But  all  things 
that  are  the  Father’s  are  already  His,  and  He  owes  no  debt  that 
f  might  be  remitted.  He  must  have  a  reward,  but  cannot.  The 
escape  from  the  dilemma  is  the  giving  of  the  reward  to  those  for 
whose  salvation  He  became  man,  to  his  kindred  who  are  so  bur¬ 
dened  with  debt.  “  Nothing  more  rational,  more  sweet,  more 
desirable  could  the  world  hear.”  Certain  fanciful  speculations 
are  added,  such  as  the  need  of  making  up  the  number  of  fallen 

1  “  Ilonorem  debitum,  qui  Deo  non  reddit,  aufert  Deo,  quod  suum  est,  et 
Deum  exhonorat;  et  hoc  est  peccare.”  (Migne,  158,  p.  376.) 

2  “  Si  non  decet  Deum  aliquid  injuste  aut  inordinate  facere,  non  pertinet  ad 
ejus  libertatem  aut  benigriitatem  aut  voluntatem,  peccantem,  qui  non  solvit 
Deo  quod  abstulit,  impunitum  dimittere.”  Ibid.  p.  378. 

3  “  quam  (satisfactionem)  nec  potest  facere  nisi  Deus,  nec  debet  nisi  homo : 
necesse  est,  ut  earn  faciat  Deus  Homo.”  II.  6.  (Migne,  p.  404.) 

4  “  vita  ista  plus  est  amabilis,  quam  sunt  peccata  odibilia.”  II.  14. 
(Migne,  p.  415.) 


MEDI/EVAL  THEOLOGY- 


221 


angels,  an  idea  drawn  from  Augustine,  and  the  reasons  for  the 
Son  instead  of  the  Father  becoming  the  man. 

Anselm’s  view  is  that  a  debt  is  due  to  God,  that  amends  must 
be  made  for  the  dishonor  to  Him.  This  satisfaction  is  not  said 
to  be  the  vicarious  endurance  of  the  penalty  of  sin.  No  stress 
is  laid  on  the  sufferings  of  Christ.  It  is  not  His  passive  obedience 
that  satisfies.1  Nor  is  it  the  active  obedience  of  Christ,  simply 
considered.  It  is  the  supererogatory  gift  of  His  life.  It  was  an 
act  of  obedience,  but  a  supererogatory  act  of  obedience.  Therein 
lies  its  merit,  its  moral  value,  its  capacity  to  procure  forgiveness 
for  the  ill-deserving. 

The  question  has  been  debated  whether  Anselm’s  theory  was 
framed  on  the  conceptions  of  Roman  or  of  German  law.  It 
unquestionably  involves  those  ideas  of  merit  which  were  in  the 
Church  anterior  to  the  influence  of  the  Teutonic  codes  and  cus¬ 
toms,  and  bears  the  traces  of  the  Roman  jural  system.  The 
influence  of  the  associations  of  German  law,  however,  is  percep¬ 
tible.  It  appears  in  the  prominence  of  the  ideas  of  personal 


d*  ’ 


established  as  a  teacher  in  Paris  in 


1 1 15,  which  was  six  years  after  the  death  of  Anselm.  In  Abe¬ 
lard  the  balance  was  lost  between  the  devotional  and  the  logical 
elements.  In  him  the  inquisitive  spirit  and  the  dialectic  passion 
had  the  decided  ascendency.  As  an  expert  dialectician,  he  sur¬ 
passed  all  his  contemporaries.  Wherever  he  lectured  and  what¬ 
ever  he  wrote,  a  ferment  was  sure  to  arise.  His  bold  and  restless 
intellect  was  ever  broaching  new  problems  or  suggesting  new 
solutions  of  old  questions.  It  is  doubtless  true,  as  Ritter  ob¬ 
serves,  that  a  certain  rashness,  rather  than  free-thinking,  was 
characteristic  of  him ;  for  he  did  not  renounce  the  fundamental 
Scholastic  principle  of  the  precedence  of  faith.  Yet  he  pushed 
his  innovations  as  far  as  was  compatible  with  the  principle  of 
authority.  The  intellect,  he  taught,  can  only  develop  the  contents 

1  Anselm  is  rightly  interpreted  in  this  particular  by  Thomasius,  DGM.  3. 
1.  p.  136  n.;  Neander,  Ch.  Hist.  II.  103;  Baur,  Gesch.  d.  Versohnungslehre , 
pp.  183,  184;  Philippi,  DGM.  4.  2.  p.  87. 

2  The  Germanic  source  of  the  Anselmic  theory  is  maintained  by  Cremer, 
Stud.  u.  Kritik.  1880,  p.  759,  with  whom  coincides  Ritschl,  Rechtfertigungs- 
lehre ,  I.  2,  p.  40  n.  See,  also,  Thomasius,  DG.  II.  123.  On  the  other  side, 
see  the  criticism  of  Loofs,  DG.  p.  273  n.,  and  Harnack,  DG.  III.  342,  n.  2. 
Cremer’s  Reply  is  in  Stud.  u.  Kritik.  (1893)  pp.  316  sqq. 


222 


HISTORY-  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


of  faith.  But  faith  without  a  knowledge  of  its  grounds  lacks 
stability ;  it  is  easily  shaken.  Moreover,  Abelard  has  a  sublime, 
if  it  were  not  a  presumptuous,  confidence  in  the  capacity  of 
reason  to  probe  to  the  foundations  of  religious  truth,  to  compre¬ 
hend  the  Gospel  from  centre  to  circumference.  Face-to-face 
knowledge,  direct,  empirical  knowledge  ( cognoscere )  is  the  re¬ 
ward  to  be  expected  in  the  future  life,  but  rational  understanding 
( intelligere )  is  possible  here.  Concerning  the  Trinity,  for  exam¬ 
ple,  we  can  discern  why  it  is  to  be  believed,  and  why  the  three 
persons  stand  to  each  other  in  the  relation  in  which  they  do,  and 
in  no  other.  No  wonder  that  his  Introduction ,  which  presented 
these  ideas  without  the  least  attempt  at  disguise,  kindled  an  im¬ 
mense  excitement.  In  his  Yes  and  No — Sic  et  Non  —  he  brought 
forward  clashing  opinions  of  the  Fathers  on  one  hundred  and 
fifty-eight  points  of  theology.  His  object  he  declares  to  be 
to  stimulate  inquiry,  for  “  by  inquiring  we  arrive  at  the  truth.” 
He  will  cultivate  the  acuteness  of  his  readers.1  He  can  have 
no  other  design  in  this  procedure  than  to  bring  in  more  free¬ 
dom  in  doctrinal  discussion  by  showing  that  to  rest  upon  au¬ 
thority  alone,  as  was  the  fashion,  is  to  lean  upon  a  broken  reed. 
Naturally  he  was  disposed  to  minimize  the  distance  between  un¬ 
inspired  philosophy  and  Christianity.  Since  the  precepts  of  the 
Gospel  are  an  improved  republication  ( reformatio )  of  the  laws  of 
Nature,  and  since  the  Christian  estimate  of  conduct  is  accord¬ 
ing  to  the  intention  of  the  mind,  there  is  no  dissonance  between 
heathen  philosophy  and  Christianity,  “  save  perhaps  in  those  things 
which  pertain  to  the  mysteries  of  the  incarnation  or  the  resurrec¬ 
tion.”  Respecting  the  inspiration  of  the  Bible,  Abelard  says  that 
the  prophets  were  not  always  under  the  influence  of  the  Spirit  and 
sometimes  uttered  errors.  Peter  and  Paul  could  differ  in  regard 
to  the  observance  of  the  law,  and  one  could  correct  the  other. 
But  if  Apostles  and  prophets  could  err,  how  much  more  the^ 
Fathers  ! 2  On  the  subject  of  Original  Sin.  Abelard  sees  not  how  to 
avoid  the  difficulties  of  the  orthodox  doctrine  —  how  infants  can 
be  guilty  or  deserve  perdition.  He  is  inclined  to  interpret  Rom. 
v.  1 2  as  meaning  that  the  sin  of  Adam  js  the  cause  of  eternal  con¬ 
demnation  to  his  descendants,  in  the  sense  in  which  we  say  that 
“  a  tyrant  lives  on  in  his  children.” 

1  “  ad  maximum  inquirendoe  veritatis  exercitium  provocent  et  acutiores  ex 
inquisitione  reddant.”  Prolog.  (Migne,  178,  p.  1349.) 

2  Trolog.  to  Sic  et  Non.  Ibid.  p.  1341. 


MEDIEVAL  THEOLOGY 


223 


Abelard  may  be  considered  the  founder  of  what  it  is  becoming 
customary  to  call  the  moral  view  of  reconciliation  to  God  through 
Christ.  The  traditional  view  of  the  relation  of  the  death  of  Christ 
to  Satan  he  rejects.  Satan  has  no  just  claims  —  no  more  than 
one  who  has  seduced  a  slave  to  run  away  from  his  rightful  master 
and  keeps  possession  of  him.1  He  scouts  the  idea  that  God  should 
be  placated  by  the  slaying  of  His  innocent  Son.2  The  work  of 
Christ,  including  His  sufferings  and  death,  is  a  manifestation  of 
divine  love  to  the  unworthy  which  is  adapted  to  kindle  gratitude 
in  their  minds  and  to  win  them  back  to  obedience  to  God.  It  is 
this  aspect  or  interpretation  of  the  office  of  Christ  by  which  Abe¬ 
lard  is  deeply  impressed.  He  connects  with  it,  however,  another . 
view  which  is  the  nearest  approach  that  he  makes  to  the  concep¬ 
tion  of  an  objective  atonement.  The  love  of  Christ  has  in  it 
merit.  And  this  love,  with  its  meritorious  quality  in  the  sight  of 
God,  is  the  basis  of  effectual  intercession  on  his  part  in  behalf  of 
sinful  men.3  It  can  hardly  be  said  that  this  representation  is  de¬ 
veloped  in  such  a  way  as  to  involve  the  idea  of  a1  change  effected 
in  the  relation  of  an  offended  God  to  mankind. 

So  far  as  particular  doctrines  are  concerned,  Abelard  gave 
offence  principally  by  his  utterances  on  the  Trinity.  God  as  the 
absolutely  perfect  combines  in  Himself  absolute  Might,  Wisdom, 
Love,  and  these  constitute  his  threefold  personality.  Another 
illustration  was  that  of  a  seal,  the  material  answering  to  the  Father, 
the  figure  carved  in  it  to  the  Son,  the  seal  impressing  its  stamp 
( sigilhim )  to  the  Spirit.  On  the  ground  of  sayings  of  this  character, 
he  was  charged  with  Modalism.  In  1121  he  was  compelled  —  as 
he  asserts,  without  discussion  —  at  a  council  at  Soissons  to  cast 
his  writing  on  the  Trinity  into  the  fire,  and  was  confined  for  a 
while  in  a  cloister.4  In  1141,  at  the  Council  of  Sens,  which  was 
guided  by  Bernard,  his  teachings  were  condemned.5  The  verdict 
was  sanctioned  by  Innocent  II.,  who  adjudged  him  to  perpetual 
confinement  in  a  cloister.  Falling  sick  on  the  way  to  Rome,  he 
was  received  by  Peter,  Abbot  of  Cluny,  and  died  in  1142. 

1  “  convinci  videtur  quod  Diabolus  in  hominem  quem  seduxit  nullum  jus 
seducendo  acquisierit.”  .  Ep.  ad  Rom.  L.  II.  (Migne,  178,  p.  834,  D.) 

2  “Quam  vero  crudele  et  iniquum  videtur  ut  sanguinem  innocentis  in  pre- 
tium,”  etc.  —  “  nedum  Deus  tarn  acceptam  filii  sui  mortem  habuerit,  ut  per 
ipsam  universo  reconciliatus  sit  mundo.”  (Migne,  Ibid.  p.  833.) 

3  Ibid.  p.  865.  4  Mansi,  XXI.  265-266  sq.  t5  Mansi,  Ibid.  559-560  sq. 


fee*.. 


224 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


There  is  nothing  to  subtract  from  the  foregoing  remarks.  But 
in  justice  to  Abelard  something  more  should  be  said.1  His  criti¬ 
cal  turn  was  not  a  veil  for  a  secret  unbelief.  He  can  be  quoted 
even  against  the  over-estimate  of  the  powers  of  the  human  mind, 
^whether  by  the  dialectician  or  by  the  mystic.  On  various  topics 
he  pursued  ways  which  Augustine  had  really,  but  less  definitely, 
opened.  In  withstanding  the  Platonic  realism,  he  resisted  a  popu¬ 
lar  current,  and  his  own  opinion,  which  was  nearer  to  that  of  Aris¬ 
totle,  enabled  him  to  emphasize  the  transcendence,  as  well  as  the 
immanence  of  God,  and  to  avoid  giving  way  to  a  Pantheistic  ten¬ 
dency  easily  allied  to  the  Platonic  extreme.  He  brought  ethics 
within  the  domain  of  theology,  and  was  a  champion  of  the  ethical 
interest.  Striking  characteristics  of  Abelard’s  teaching  were 
taken  up  by  the  orthodox  Schoolmen  of  the  following  century, 
although  drawn  by  them  from  Aristotle  rather  than  from  him. 
The  odium  of  which  Abelard  was  the  later  object  was  partly  owing  to 
the  atmosphere  of  the  period,  which  later  was  materially  modified. 
This  is  indicated  by  the  fact  that  others,  notably  Peter  Lombard, 
were  likewise  subject  temporarily  to  a  like  sort  of  censorship  and 
attack,  which  passed  by  with  the  lapse  of  time. 

The  great  antagonist  of  Abelard  was  ^'Bernard  of 
The  two  men,  as  to  mental  peculiarities  and  character, 
strongest  contrast  to  one  another.  If  we  look  for  the  secret  of  the 
overpowering  eloquence  of  Bernard  and  of  his  unequalled  influence 
as  an  ecclesiastical  leader,  as  a  promoter  of  the  crusades,  a  guide 
and  monitor  of  Popes,  we  shall  find  it  in  the  depth  and  ardor  of 
his  piety.  And  that  type  of  piety  of  which  he  was  so  impressive 
an  example  was  productive  of  effects,  in  the  realm  of  theological 
thought,  which  in  him  and  in  those  after  him  are  historically  in  a  high 
degree  important.  His  fervor  of  sensibility  appears  in  yearnings 
heavenward,  in  aspirations  for  communion  with  the  Christ  who  is 
no  longer  enshrined  in  the  flesh  —  feelings  which  have  a  precedent 
in  the  devotional  outpourings  of  Augustine.  But  there  are  peculi¬ 
arities  in  Bernard’s  piety.  In  his  allegorizing  of  the  Canticles,  his 
highest  aspiration,  the  goal  of  his  hope,  is  to  kiss  the  heavenly 
bridegroom  upon  the  lips.  His  expressions  descriptive  of  his  love 
to  the  Lord  are  borrowed  from  the  language  of  nuptial  affection. 
From  this  source  similes  are  directly  drawn.  But  what  is  specially 

1  See  Deutsch’s  Monograph  upon  Abelard,  and  Ilarnack’s  spirited  apology, 
DG.  III.  326  sq. 


Clairvaux] 
are  in  the 


M  ED  I /EVA  L  THEOLOGY 


225 


to  be  observed  is  Bernard’s  intense  interest  in  the  self-abasement 
and  suffering  of  the  incarnate  Jesus,  and  his  absorbing  contempla¬ 
tion  of  the  Saviour  in  this  character.  From  this  point  of  view,  he 
occasionally  utters  thoughts  truly  evangelical  in  their  tenor,  one  of 
which  brought  comfort  to  Luther  when  he  was  chafing  under  the 
fetters  of  legalism.  Here  and  there  he  inculcates  the  truth  of  a 
free  and  gratuitous  pardon  to  the  believer.  Yet  severe,  ascetic 
self-chastisement  is  essential  in  his  conception  of  the  religious  life. 
He  remains  a  monk  in  theory  and  in  practice. 

Pervaded  with  reverence  and  awe  for  divine  things,  Bernard 
was  deeply  aggrieved  by  Abelard’s  essays  to  explain  them  as  if 
they  were  every-day  matters.  He  complains  that  through  Abelard’s 
influence  all  minds  were  unsettled ;  that  it  had  come  to  pass  in 
France  that  the  Trinity  was  almost  a  theme  of  disputation  for  boys 
in  the  street,  and  that  the  sacred  and  mysterious  truths  of  religion 
were  turned  into  a  mere  gymnastic  for  the  understanding.  He 
points  out  three  conceivable  ways  of  grasping  divine  truth.1  The 
first  is  by  the  intellect,  which  apprehends  them  in  their  rationality ; 
but  this  is  not  possible  in  the  present  life.  The  second  is  opinion, 
which  is  something  void  of  certainty.  The  third  is  faith,  which  is  an 
embracing  by  the  heart  and  will,  anticipatory  of  rational  insight.2 
There  are  possible  ecstasies  of  feeling — raptus  —  when  the  soul  \ 
is.  illuminated  and  catches  a  glimpse  of  heavenly  things?  beyond  \ 
any  perceptions  open  to  the  intellect.  Bernard  was  not  a  foe  to 
learning  and  science,  but  his  power  was  exerted  in  the  direction 
of  laying  a  curb  upon  reason  and  exalting  piety  as  the  door  to 
knowledge.  On  the  subject  of  the  Atonement,  Bernard  earnestly 
opposes  the  theory  of  Abelard  respecting  the  bearing  of  the  work 
of  Christ  upon  the  sway  of  Satan.  The  right  of  Satan  over  man¬ 
kind,  he  contends,  is  not  based  on  any  obligation  to  him,  but  the 
bondage  to  Satan,  however  iniquitously  it  was  secured,  is  right¬ 
eously  permitted  as  a  just  retribution  for  sin.3  He  is  the  execu¬ 
tioner  of  the  divine  justice.  This  brings  out  a  principle  latent 
in  the  old  conception  relative  to  deliverance  from  Satanic  control. 

1  De  Consideratione,  V.  3.  (Migne,  182,  p.  79°*) 

2  “  Fides  est  voluntaria  quoedam  et  certa  praelibatio  necdum  propalatae 
veritatis.”  “Nil  autem  malumus  scire  quam  quae  fide  jam  scimus. ”  Ibid.  3. 
(Migne,  182,  p.  791.) 

3  “jus,  etsi  non  jure  acquisitum,  sed  nequiter  usurpatum;  juste  tamen  per- 
missum.”  Ep.  CX C.  sen  Tract,  ad  Inn.  II.  (1140)  c.  5.  (Migne,  182,  p.  1065.) 

Q 


226 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


Christ  made  this  deliverance  to  harmonize  with  the  justice  of-  God, 
who  has  ordained  the  servitude  under  the  Evil  One  as  a  penalty 
for  man’s  transgression. 

Akin  to  Abelard  in  spirit  was  Gilbert,  Bishop  of  Poictiers  — 
/^Gilbert  PorretanusTJwho  died  in  1154).  From  the  point  of  view 
of  a  moderate  Realism  of  the  Aristotelian  type,  he  distinguished 
“  God  ”  from  “Deity”  or  the  Divine  Essence.  The  latter  is  the 
universal,  as  humanity  is  related  to  individual  men.1  Father,  Son, 
and  Spirit  are  one,  but  we  may  not  say  that  God  is  Father,  and 
Son,  and  Spirit.  We  cannot  say  that  the  Deity  became  flesh.  At 
the  great  Council  of  Rheims  in  1148,  Bernard’s  accusation  of 
heresy  was  brought  forward ;  but  Gilbert,  aided  by  his  powerful 
friends  and  by  the  jealousy  occasioned  by  the  overshadowing  in¬ 
fluence  of  his  accuser,  went  away  unharmed.  Pope  Eugene  III. 
declared  against  the  opinion  which  he  had  held. 

In  the  school  of  St.  Victor  near  Paris  were  eminent  theologians 
who  struck  a  middle  path  between  the  intellectual  daring  of  Abe- 
lard  and  an  extreme  conservatism.  To  this  moderate  school  be¬ 
longed  William  of  Champeaux,  a  friend  and  in  some  sense  a  guide 
of  St.  Bernard,  Hugo  of  St.  Victor,  the  ablest  representative  of  the 
school,  and  Richard  of  St.  Victor,  of  the  particulars  of  whose  life 
not  much  is  known.  The  merit  of  faith,  Hugo  teaches,  lies  in 
the  circumstance  that  our  conviction  is  determined  by  the  affec¬ 
tions  when  no  adequate  knowledge  is  yet  present.  By  faith  we 
make  ourselves  worthy  of  knowledge,  as  perfect  knowledge  is  the 
ultimate  reward  of  faith  in  the  life  above.  On  the  Atonement, 
Hugo  teaches  that  through  the  sufferings  and  death  of  Christ  an 
adequate  satisfaction  is  offered  to  God  for  man’s  sin.2  Thereby, 
and  on  account  of  the  bringing,  to  Him  of  a  perfect  obedience, 
God  is  reconciled  and  His  displeasure  removed.  There  is  an 
objective  Atonement,  comprising  in  it  a  quasi  penal  element. 
This  view  is  opposed  to  that  of  Abelard  and  contains  an  element 
not  expressed  in  Anselm’s  theory. 

The  effect  of  the  conservative  reaction  illustrated  in  the  treat¬ 
ment  of  Abelard  and  Gilbert  was  to  inspire  the  Schoolmen  of  the 


1  “  Quod  divina  natura  quse  Divinitas  dicitur,  Deus  non  sit,  sed  forma  qua 
Deus  est,  quemadmodum  huinanitas  homo  non  est,  sed  forma  qua  est  homo.” 
“Sunt  tres  oeternse.”  Mansi,  XXI.  Col.  711. 

2  “  Christus  .  .  .  debitum  hominis  patri  solvit,  et  moriendo  reatum  hominis 
expiavit.”  De  Sacratn.  I.  S,  c.  4.  (Migne,  176,  p.  309.) 


MEDIAEVAL  THEOLOGY 


227 


time  with  greater  caution.  A  via  media  between  the  two  ten¬ 
dencies,  the  dialectic  and  the  churchly,  was  adopted  by  the 
authors  of  the  bqoks_of  Sentences.  Propositions  were  sustained 
by  extracts  from  the  Fathers.  There  were  two  principal  writers  of 
this  class.  One  was  Robert  Pulleyn,  an  Englishman,  who  died  in 
1150.  By  far  the  most  celebrated  of  these  authors  was'JPeter 
LombardTwho  was  born  at  Novara  in  Italy,  taught  theology  at 
Paris,  became  bishop  there  in  1159,  and  died  in  1164.  He  set 
forth  the  doctrines  of  the  Church  in  a  systematic  form,  explained 
them,  and  argued  for  them,  but  everywhere  supported  his  opin¬ 
ions  by  citations  from  the  Fathers,  especially  from  Augustine.  He 
was  a  pupil  of  Abelard  and  was  obviously  much  affected  by  his 
teachings.  He  lays  much  stress  on  the  deliverance  from  sin 
through  the  love  that  is  awakened  in  the  human  heart  by  the 
manifestation  of  God’s  love  in  the  mission  and  death  of  Christ.1 
But  he  connects  with  this  representation  the  doctrine  of  man’s 
release  from  the  hands  of  Satan,  regarded  as  an  executioner. 
Here  he  agrees  with  Bernard.  “  By  his  death,  one  most  real 
sacrifice,  whatever  of  faults  there  were  for  enduring  the  punish¬ 
ment  of  which  Satan  held  us  in  his  power,  Christ  extinguished.” 
He  “merited  for  us.”  His  consummate  humility  atoned  for 
Adam’s  pride.2  He  even  says  that  Christ  took  on  himself  the 
punishment  of  sin,  —  a  distinct  step  in  advance  of  Anselm.3  But 
the  Lombard  protests  earnestly  against  the  notion  that  God  was  an 
enemy  and  did  not  begin  to  love  us  until  we  were  reconciled  by  the 
blood  of  Christ.  Rather  is  it  true  that  He  loved  us  before  the 
world  was,  and  this  love  was  the  motive  of  the  atonement.  Peter 
Lombard  did  not  escape  suspicion  and  accusation.  Among  his 
adverse  critics  were  Walter  of  St.  Victor,  and  Joachim  of  Floris,  a 
mystic.  It  was  said  that  some  of  his  statements  respecting  the 
Trinity  were  unsound.  Joachim  attributed  to  him  the  idea  of  a 
quaternity  in  the  divine  being,  on  the  ground  of  the  statement  that 
the  Father  as  personal  principle  in  the  divine  being  generates  the 
Son.  The  divine  essence,  it  was  said,  is  thus  made  a  fourth.  But 
the  Fourth  Lateran  Council,  1215,  decided  for  the  Lombard.  The 
Father  is  declared  to  be  the  active  principle  in  the  generation  of 

1  Seta.  L.  III.  Dist.  XIX.  1.  (Migne,  192,  p.  795-) 

2  Dist.  XVIII.  5.  (Migne,  192,  p.  794.) 

'  3  “  Non  sufficeret  ilia  poena,  qua  poenitentes  ligat  ecclesia,  nisi  poena  Christi 
cooperetur,  qui  pro  nobis  solvit.”  Ibid.  XIX.  4.  (Migne,  192,  p.  797.) 


228 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


the  Son,  not  separable  from  the  essence,  but  communicating  it 
to  the  Son.  Respecting  the  Jbicarnation,  the  Lombard  taught  that 
the  divine  person  which  had  been  simple  and  existing  in  one 
nature,  became  the  person  of  a  man  by  assuming  human  nature, 
thus  becoming  one  divine  person  in  two  natures.1  Thus  adop- 
tionism  was  avoided. 

Adverse  criticism  ceased  as  time  went  on,  and  the  book  of 
Sentences  became  the  current  text-book  in  theology,  on  which 
numberless  lectures  were  delivered  and  commentaries  written. 
The  dialecticians  were  too  strong  for  the  mystics  to  cast  them  into 
discredit.  The  most  noted  of  the  critics  of  Scholasticism  on  the 
ground  of  its  logical  fanaticism  and  neglect  of  ancient  learning 
was  John  of  Salisbury,  a  Humanist  in  his  studies  and  tastes.  In 
his  closing  years  he  was  Bishop  of  Chartres.  He  died  in  1180. 


1  L.  III.  6.  6. 


CHAPTER  V 


THE  SECOND  SECTION  OF  THE  SCHOLASTIC  ERA — ST.  FRANCIS  AND 
THE  FRANCISCAN  PIETY - MYSTICISM - AQUINAS  AND  SCOTUS 


The  transition  to  the  second  .division  of  the  Scholastic  period 
was  made  byjjAlexander  of  Haley—  who  was  trained  in  the  clois¬ 
ter  of  Hales  m  Gloucestershire,  studied  at  Oxford  and  Paris,  and 
in  1222  became  the  first  Franciscan  teacher  of  theology  at  Paris. 
By  this  “  irrefragable  doctor,”  as  he  was  styled,  the  writings  of 
Aristotle,  as  well  as  those  of  his  Arabic  commentators,  were  freely 
used.  The  approval  by  the  Pope  of  this  teacher’s  own  commen¬ 
taries  on  Aristotle  left  theologians  free  from  the  restraint  relative 
to  the  use  of  the  philosopher’s  writings,  which  had  been  imposed 
by  Gregory  IX.  in  1215.  The  reverence  for  him  grew.  It  came 
to  pass  that  he  was  not  only  cited  in  lectures  and  treatises  in  con¬ 
nection  with  the  Fathers  of  the  Church,  but  that  he  was  considered 
to  have  exhausted  the  powers  of  human  reason  in  the  ascertain¬ 
ment  of  ethical  and  religious  truth,  as  well  as  in  physics  and  psy¬ 
chology.  Yet  the  influence  of  Aristotle  in  shaping  Christian 
doctrine  was  mainly  in  the  directions  in  which  the  Church  of 
itself  had  adopted  kindred  opinions  or  points  of  view.  Much  im¬ 
portance,  even  as  regards  the  history  of  theology,  belongs  to  that 
great  religious  movement  of  the  thirteenth  century,  which  is  con¬ 
nected  in  a  preeminent  degree  with  the  work  and  example  of 
St.  Francis  of  Assisi  and  with  both  the  mendicant  orders.  It 
was  from  the  Franciscans  that  Dominic  borrowed,  and  he  enjoined 
upon  the  order  that  he  founded  the  rule  of  poverty.  The  type  of 
piety  which  sprung  up  under  the  auspices  of  the  Saint  of  Assisi 
had  its  precursor  in  St.  Bernard,  but  was  further  developed  in  a 
like  direction,  and  exerted  a  vastly  increased  power  and  influence. 
The  idea  that  filled  the  mind  of  St.  Francis  was  that  of  the  repro¬ 
duction  of  the  “  life  and  the  poverty  of  Jesus.”  The  contem- 

229 


230 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


k. 


plation  of  Jesus,  especially  in  his  self-renunciation  and  sufferings, 
was  ever  a  fountain  of  joy  and  entered  largely  into  the  Franciscan 
ideal  of  the  religious  life.  But  with  this  spirit,  which  is  termed 
the  “  mystical  ”  side,  there  was  united  an  inextinguishable  ardor 
in  doing  good,  in  which  preaching  and  the  care  of  souls  formed 
an  essential  part.  In  all  this  activity,  the  privilege  of  hearing 
confessions  and  other  prerogatives  granted  to  the  mendicant  friars 
by  the  Popes,  great  as  was  the  hostility  thus  engendered  among 
the  bishops  and  local  priests,  were  an  invaluable  aid.  There  is 
not  space  here  to  enter  into  details  on  these  topics,  but  two 
characteristics  of  the  great  Franciscan  revival  require  to  be  dis¬ 
tinctly  mentioned.  The  first  is  that  in  its  origin  and  continuance 
the  laity  were  largely  concerned,  although,  from  the  first,  obedience 
to  the  hierarchy,  to  the  Pope  especially,  was  a  cardinal  rule,  and, 
as  time  went  on,  the  lay  element  more  and  more  gave  place  to 
priestly  membership  and  control.  The  second  point  is  the  fact 
that  there  was  opened,  on  a  large  scale,  personal  religious  effort 
for  the  conversion  and  the  religious  guidance  and  comfort  of 
individuals.  The  love  of  Christ  was  a  glowing,  absorbing  passion. 
To  dwell  on  His  humility,  His  self-denial,  His  death  on  the  cross, 
was  the  main  source  of  comfort  and  inspiration.  It  is  remarkable 
that  while  the  Scholastic  doctrine  respecting  Christ,  as  a  whole, 
leaned  towards  a  monophysite  view,  or  a  view  in  which  His  human 
nature  was  eclipsed  by  His  divinity,  there  should  prevail  to  such 
an  extent  a  loving  contemplation  of  His  human  traits  and  ex- 
:  periences. 

If  we  give  the  name  of  Mysticism  to  the  self-surrender,  amount¬ 
ing  at  times  to  the  self-extinguishment,  of  the  soul,  in  the  glow  of 
emotion,  and  to  a  rapturous  insight  sought  through  this  channel, 
it  is  in  the  declining  period  of  Scholasticism  that  Mysticism  as¬ 
sumes  a  peculiar  prominence.  But  in  its  essential  character  it  is 
a  marked  phenomenon  in  the  preceding  age.  Mysticism  and 
Scholasticism  were  not  antagonists.  Among  the  theological 
leaders,  the  great  mystics  were  Scholastics,  and  the  most  eminent 
Schoolmen,  who  are  not  classified  with  the  Mystics,  exemplified 
Mysticism  in  their  own  experience  and  found  a  place  for  it  in  their 
teaching.  But  in  certain  of  the  Schoolmen,  Mysticism  is  elabo¬ 
rately  explained  and  wrought  into  an  articulated  system.  Such  are 
the  “  Victorines,”  Hugo  and  Richard.  Such  is  Bonaventura  — 
John  of  Fidanza  —  “  doctor  seraphicus  ”  —  a  pupil  of  Alexander  of 


MEDI/EVAL  THEOLOGY 


231 


Hales,  his  successor  at  Paris,  and  in  1256  made  General  of  the 
Franciscan  order.  He  put  the  highest  value  upon  spiritual  illu¬ 
mination.  He  preferred  the  Platonic  teaching  to  that  of  Aristotle. 
Yet  he  was  Scholastic  in  his  method.  In  the  mystical  system  the 
approach  to  direct  communion  with  God,  the  goal  of  human  as¬ 
piration,  is  partly  intellectual,  but  also,  keeping  pace  with  it,  ethical 
and  practical.  Above  the  empirical  apprehension,  above  the 
rational  understanding,  of  the  world,  is  the  ascent  of  the  soul,  if 
purified  and  enlightened  by  divine  grace,  to  the  enraptured  per¬ 
ception,  the  ecstatic  enjoyment,  of  the  realities  of  faith.  On  this 
height,  above  the  plane  of  sense-perception  and  of  logic,  there  are 
discerned  the  allegorical  import  of  nature  and  the  allegorical  sense 
of  Scripture. 

No  theologian  of  German  birth  in  the  Middle  Ages  stands 
higher  in  merit  than  /Albert  the  Great^Jstyled  from  the  extent 
of  his  acquisitions,  which  embraced  an  acquaintance  with  natural 
science,  “  doctor  universalis.”  Distinguished  for  his  expositions 
of  Aristotle,  he  was  affected  also  by  Platonic  and  New  Platonic 
doctrine,  and  by  the  mystical  speculations  of  the  Areopagite. 
General  ideas,  he  held,  are  in  the  mind  of  God,  but  are  realized  in 
individual  things.  A  versatile  and  prolific  writer,  he  still  left  unfin¬ 
ished  his  Summa  and  his  Commentary  on  the  Lombard.  But  Albert 
is  in  a  measure  overshadowed  by  the  commanding  distinction  of 
his  renowned  pupil, [Thomas  Aquinas^jvho,  like  his  master,  was  a 
Dominican,  and  the  great  light  of  that  order.  With  his  personal 
friend  Bonaventura,  he  maintained  the  claim  of  the  mendicant 
orders  to  chairs  in  the  University  of  Paris.  In  Thomas  there 
reappears  that  just  balance  between  the  philosophical  tendency  and 
the  religious  which  was  so  marked  in  Anselm.  In  Thomas,  won¬ 
derful  acumen  blends  with  clearness.  He  is  the  most  profound 
and  luminous  of  the  Scholastic  writers.  He  was,  like  Albert,  an 
Aristotelian  Realist.  In  general,  more  than  any  other,  he  labored 
to  harmonize  the  principles  of  Aristotle  with  the  teachings  of  the 
Church,  of  whose  authority,  including  the  supreme  authority  of 
the  Popes,  he  was  a  devoted  champion.  His  Sumjna  Theologicz 
covers  the  field  of  Ethics  as  well  as  of  Theology.  It  was  not  com¬ 
pleted  by  its  author,  but  stopped  in  the  midst  of  the  discussion  of  the 
doctrine  of  Penance.  It  is  carried  to  the  end,  however,  by  means 
of  extracts  from  his  other  writings.  The  generic  subject  is  God, 
and  the  work  is  cast  into  three  principal  parts,  each  breaking  into 


232 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


divisions  and  subdivisions.  The  first  part  treats  of  God,  including 
the  nature  of  God,  the  Trinity,  the  relation  of  God  to  the  World. 
The  second  treats  of  Man,  or  the  “  Motion  of  the  Creature  towards 
God,”  where  are  discussed  Sin  and  Law,  the  Virtues,  natural  and 
Christian  or  theological,  and  the  contemplative  or  blessed  life, 
which  is  the  end  and  aim  of  man’s  being,  to  be  realized  in  the 
world  above.  The  third  part  deals  with  the  Person  and  Work  of 
Christ,  the  Sacraments,  and  with  Eschatology.  Christ  is  to  us  the 
way  of  returning  to  God.  Thus  with  God  theology  begins  and 
ends.  The  trend  of  Aquinas  is  decidedly  Augustinian.  In  his 
apologetic  Work,  Christianity  is  defended  against  heathen,  Moham¬ 
medans,  and  skeptics,  the  first  part  being  upon  the  truths  of  nat¬ 
ural  religion  and  the  fourth  or  concluding  book  upon  the  truths  of 
revelation. 

Associated  with  the  name  of  Aquinas  is  that  of  the  Scholastic 
teacher  who,  as  to  the  type  of  his  theology,  was  at  variance  with 
himMohn  Duns  ScotusJ  He  belongs  to  a  generation  later,  was  a 
member  of  the  Franciscan  order,  and  died  in  1308.  Scotus  was 
appropriately  named  “doctor  mirabilis.”  So  far  did  he  push  the 
process  of  hair-splitting  analysis  that  he  was  driven  to  invent  many 
new  terms.  His  style,  compared  with  that  of  his  Scholastic  prede¬ 
cessors,  is  marked  by  its  barbarous  latinity.  A  sincere  Christian 
believer,  and  standing  in  his  own  day  within  the  lines  of  admis¬ 
sible  orthodoxy,  he  yet  lacks  the  religious  depth  of  Aquinas.  In 
philosophy,  he  did  not  stop  with  Aristotle,  but  was  more  Platonic 
in  his  Realism.  In  his  theology,  he  was  Semi-Pelagian.  The 
effect  ©f  the  teaching  of  Scotus  was  to  begin  the  work  of  under¬ 
mining  the  Scholasticism  of  which  he  was  so  famous  a  leader. 
This  effect  was  produced,  partly  by  his  critical  treatment  of  the 
arguments  drawn  from  reason  for  the  propositions  of  the  creed. 
Very  little  space  was  conceded  to  possible  demonstration.  Many 
arguments  which  had  been  deemed  sufficient  to  foreclose  all 
objections  were  reduced  to  a  higher  or  lower  degree  of  probabil¬ 
ity.  Then  essential  parts  of  the  divine  administration  and  of  the 
procedure  of  God  in  redemption  were  represented  as  inexplicable, 
or  as  sufficiently  explained  by  the  reference  of  them  to  God’s  will. 
In  these  ways  the  sphere  of  authority  was  enlarged,  and  the  ver¬ 
dict  of  the  Church  left  as  the  sole  verification  of  important 
doctrines.  So  far  as  this  ground  was  taken,  the  vocation  of 
Scholasticism  was  gone. 


MEDIAEVAL  THEOLOGY 


233 


Aquinas  and  Scotus  were  the  founders  of  the  two  great  conflict¬ 
ing  schools.  The  dissent  of  Scotus  related  to  numerous  points. 
A  radical  difference,  which  affected  the  entire  complexion  of  the 
rival  systems,  was  their  diversity  on  the  subject  of  Grace  and 
Free-will. 

It  is  in  the  third  section  of  the  Scholastic  Period  that  the  dis¬ 
integrating  work  of  Scotus,  which  tended  to  divorce  philosophy 
from  theology,  and  to  bring  discredit  upon  the  whole  undertaking 
of  the  Schoolmen,  was  carried  out.  Durandus  de  St.  Pourcain,  a 
Dominican,  at  first  a  Thomist,  broke  away  from  his  adhesion  to 
the  school  of  Aquinas,  and  maintained  that  we  have  no  clear  knowl¬ 
edge  save  of  individual  things.  He  subjected  the  dominant  Real¬ 
ism  to  a  hostile  criticism.  Durandus  died  as  Bishop  of  Meaux  in 
1334.  But  it  was  chieflyjwilliam  of  Occam/jp-  pupil  of  Scotus, 
who  regained  for  Nominalism  its  long  lost  standing.  He  was  for 
a  time  a  teacher  at  Paris.  He  was  a  champion  of  the  Franciscan 
order  in  its  contests  against  the  Popes  in  behalf  of  the  rule  of 
poverty.  He  stood  by  Louis  of  Bavaria  in  his  resistance  to  the 
political  interference  of  the  Avignonese  Pontiffs.  All  our  knowledge, 
Occam  asserted,  is  of  phenomena.  Individuals,  things  in  the  con¬ 
crete,  alone  exist.  Common  names,  like  algebraic  signs,  are  to 
designate  them.  Demonstrations  in  religion  are  out  of  the  ques¬ 
tion.  Logic  when  applied  to  the  truths  of  Christianity  lands  us  in 
contradictions.  These  truths  are  revealed  directly  by  God  either 
in  the  Bible  or  to  the  Church.  Occam’s  assaults  upon  papal  infal¬ 
libility  and  the  power  of  the  Pope  over  Kings  and  in  temporal 
affairs,  his  assertion  that  even  a  general  council  might  err,  even 
that  faith  might  depart  save  from  the  souls  of  a  few  devout  women, 
are  interesting  parts  of  his  teaching.  What  concerns  us  just  now 
is  his  thesis  that  even  transubstantiation  is  logically  indefensible, 
and  is  to  be  accepted  as  a  revelation  made  to  the  Church.  In  the 
latter  part  of  the  fifteenth  century,  Gabriel  Biel,  teacher  of  theol¬ 
ogy  at  Tubingen,  who  has  been  sometimes  styled  the  last  of  the 
Schoolmen,  was  prominent  as  an  expounder  of  Nominalism  and  a 
disciple  of  Occam.  He  died  in  1495.  After  Occam  appeared, 
there  were  three,  instead  of  two,  contending  schools,  the  Thomists, 
the  Scotists,  and  the  Occamists.  Nominalism  was  in  the  ascendant. 


CHAPTER  VI 


THE  SCHOLASTIC  DOCTRINES  :  NATURAL  THEOLOGY  AND  CHRISTIAN 

EVIDENCES  —  THE  TRINITY  AND  THE  INCARNATION - DIVINE  AND 

HUMAN  AGENCY - ORIGINAL  SIN 

In  presenting  the  opinions  of  the  Schoolmen  on  specific  doctrines, 
chief  attention  will  be -given  to  the  topics  in  connection  with  which 
their  teaching  was  something  more  than  the  bare  reproduction  of 
patristic  theology.  Such  topics  are  the  Church  and  the  Sacra¬ 
ments,  respecting  which  it  was  sought  to  interpret  and  justify  the 
existing  practices ;  the  doctrine  of  sin  and  of  the  operation  of 
grace,  where  there  were  important  deviations  from  the  Augustinian 
teaching,  and  the  Atonement,  —  a  subject  on  which  discussion 
was  not  fettered  by  any  established  dogma.  Special  attention 
will  naturally  be  given  to  the  antithesis  of  the  Thomist  and  the 
Scotist  opinions. 

j~Aquinasjpndeavors  to  indicate  the  necessity  of  revelation  against 
the  objection  that  if  man  were  not  furnished  with  all  the  powers 
requisite  for  attaining  the  end  of  his  being,  he  would  be  behind 
all  other  creatures,  who  in  this  respect  are  sufficient  of  themselves. 
The  answer  is  that  for  the  very  reason  that  man  has  a  higher  end, 
a  loftier  destiny,  which  is  nothing  less  than  a  participation  in  the 
divine  glory,  he  needs  supernatural  light  and  aid.  Thomas  dis¬ 
tinguishes  two  classes  of  truths  from  one  another.1  There  are  the 
truths  above  reason,  —  for  example,  the  Trinity.  There  are  truths 
accessible  to  reason,  —  for  example,  the  truth  that  there  is  a  God. 
But  even  truths  of  the  second  order  need  to  be  confirmed  by  the 
testimony  of  revelation,  since  practically  the  knowledge  of  God 
is  attainable  by  only  a  few,  through  long  effort,  and  not  without 
an  admixture  of  error.  That  there  should  be  truths  which  are 
the  object  of  faith  is  advantageous,  as  attracting  the  mind  towards 

1  Summa  Cathol.  Fidei  c.  Gentiles ,  P.  I.  qu.  i,  art.  I. 

234 


MEDIEVAL  THEOLOGY 


235 


a  higher  realm  of  knowledge/  kindling  aspirations  after  a  more 
exalted  state,  and  fostering  humility.  As  related  to  the  truths  of 
faith,  we  are  capable  of  discerning  analogies  —  veras  similitudi- 
ncs'- — which,  although  without  demonstrative  force,  and  not  suffi¬ 
cient  to  convince  adversaries,  are  yet  a  mental  exercise  and  solace 
for  the  faithful,  and  show  that  these  truths  do  not  clash  with 
reason.  In  their  defences  of  Christianity,  the  Schoolmen  were 
necessarily  cut  off  from  the  use  of  arguments  which  involve  his¬ 
torical  and  critical  learning.  It  is  not  until  the  close  of  the 
Scholastic  period  and  the  rise  of  Humanism  that,  through  the 
work  of  Marsilius  Ficinus,  the  Florentine  Platonist,  the  historical 
evidence  of  Christianity  is  presented  with  any  fulness  of  knowl¬ 
edge.2  The  Schoolmen  drew  a  line  of  demarcation  between  natu¬ 
ral  and  revealed  religion.  Their  apologies  were  often  cogent,  if 
they  were  not  erudite,  and  had  the  merit  of  accuracy  in  definitions. 
Aquinas  explains  a  miracle  to  be  an  event  beyond  the  order  of 
nature,  not  of  any  particular  department  of  nature,  but  of  nature 
in  its  totality.3  It  is  an  event,  therefore,  which  God  alone  can 
accomplish.  As  regards  the  divine  origin  of  the  Scriptures,  Scotus 
was  the  first  to  treat  this  topic  elaborately.  He  presents  eight 
considerations,  nearly  all  of  which  are  internal  proofs. 

Aquinas,  in  his  doctrine  concerning  God,  describes  Him  as 
endowed  with  thought  and  will.  With  Aristotle  he  says  of  Him 
that  He  is  actus  purus ,  i.e.,  energy  fully  realized,  instead  of  being 
potential.  God  sets  before  Himself  an  end.  This  must  necessarily 
have  reference  to  Himself,  must  be  Himself.  In  pursuance  of 
this  end  the  world  was  made.  The  world  as  being  thus  related 
to  God  is  an  object  of  His  love.  But  connected  with  these  views 
is  the  conception  of  God  —  which  is  derived  from  the  Areopagite 
—  as  a  being  of  whom  nothing  positive  can  be  predicated.4 

As  to  particular  proofs  of  the  divine  existence,  Aquinas  re¬ 
marks  of  the  Anselmic  argument  that  it  assumes,  what  an  Athe¬ 
ist  will  not  concede,  that  the  term  ‘  God  ’  denotes  the  highest 

1  “  Oportuit  mentem  evocari  in  aliquid  altius  quam  ratia  nostra  in  praesenti 
possit  pertingere.” 

2  De  Relig.  Christ,  et  Fidei  Pietate  (1475). 

3  Sununa  Theol.  P.  I.  qu.  110,  art.  4  —  “sed  non  sufficit  ad  rationem  mi- 
raculi  si  aliquid  fiat  praeter  ordinem  naturae  alicujus  particularis  .  .  .  aliquid 
dicitar  esse  miraculum,  quod  fit  praeter  ordinem  totius  naturae  creatae,  hoc 
auteia  non  potest  facere  nisi  Deus,”  etc. 

4  Ibid.  P.  III.  qu.  1,  art.  2;  cf.  P.  I.  qu.  46,  art.  1. 


236 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


conceivable,  and,  if  it  does,  that  what  exists  in  name  exists 
objectively.1  In  agreement  with  Richard  of  St.  Victor,  he  collects 
five  modes  of  proof,  viz.,  from  a  first  principle  of  motion  (Aris¬ 
totle  being  here  followed),  from  the  necessity  of  a  first  efficient 
cause,  from  the  presupposition  of  an  existence  which  is  per  se 
necessary,  from  the  supposition  of  the  perfect  as  implied  in  the 
scale  of  things  imperfect,  from  design  in  nature.2  The  first  three 
suggestions  form  the  cosmological  proof.  But  Aquinas  holds  that 
prior  to  all  reasoning,  a  knowledge  of  God  is  inherent  “  in  a  con¬ 
fused  way  ”  in  all  men. 

jjScotuAsets  aside  the  ontological  argument  for  the  being  of 
God.  Idle  argument  from  effect  to  cause  he  does  not  reject. 
But  as  a  ground  of  theistic  belief  he  calls  ia  the  aid  of  Revela¬ 
tion.3  Emphasizing  the  attribute  of  freedom  in  man,  he  likewise 
makes  will  the  predominant  element  in  the  conception  of  God. 
But  this  autonomy  is  made  so  absolute  that  no  reason  is  required 
for  the  actions  of  God  beyond  or  behind  His  bare  will.  While, 
therefore,  the  personality  of  God  is  asserted  in  a  more  stringent 
way  th4en  by  Aquinas,  a  foundation  is  laid  by  Scotus  for  a  series 
of  very  questionable  propositions  in  Christian  doctrine. 

Can  man  know  God  as  He  is  in  Himself,  or,  as  the  Schoolmen 
express  it,  has  he  “  a  quidditative  ”  cognition  of  God  ?  Thomas 
replies  in  the  negative ;  all  our  knowledge  is  relative.  Scotus 
answers  in  the  affirmative.  Finally  a  middle  ground  was  reached 
by  contending  parties,  —  the  position,  namely,  that  some  of  the 
essential  attributes  can  be  known  as  they  are,  and  others  cannot. 

The  Scholastic  discussions  respecting  the  significance  of  the  sev¬ 
eral  divine  attributes  are  examples  of  subtle  and  often  not  unprofit¬ 
able  discrimination.  Omnipotence,  says  Aquinas,  is  the  power  to 
do  whatever  does  not  involve  a  contradiction.  But  of  this  last  it  is 
more  true  to  say  that  it  cannot  be  done  than  that  God  cannot  do 
it.  In  relation  to  God’s  omnipresence,  the  Thomist  doctrine  was 
that  God  is  in  all  things,  not  as  a  part  of  their  essence,  nor  yet  as 
an  accident  or  attribute,  but  as  an  agent  is  present  to  that  on 
which  it  acts.  “  Everything  must  be  conjoined  to  that  on  which 
it  immediately  acts.”  In  opposition  to  this  “  virtual  ”  presence 
of  God,  which  had  been  taught  before  by  Alexander  of  Hales,  the 

1  Summa  Theol.  P.  I.  qu.  2,  art.  1.  2  Ibid.  qu.  2,  art.  3.  ' 

3  For  a  full  exposition  of  Scotus’s  view,  see  A.  Dorner’s  art.,  Real  I'.ncycl. 
Vol.  III.  p.  739  sq. 


MEDIAEVAL  THEOLOGY 


237 


Scotists  asserted  an  “  ideal  ”  presence.  Dependent  existences  are 
conditioned  only  by  their  presence,  or  the  presence  of  the  ideal 
exemplars  of  which  they  partake,  in  the  divine  mind. 

There  was  a  vast  outlay  of  ingenuity  among  the  Schoolmen  in 
the  exposition  of  the  doctrines  of  the  Trinity  and  of  the  Incarna¬ 
tion.  The  conceptions  of  Aquinas  were  as  clear  and  exact  as  the 
nature  of  the  questions  permits,  and  in  the  main  they  ruled 
opinion.  Respecting  persons  in  God,  it  is  taught  that  the 
activity  in  which  they  originate  is  immanent.  They  are  related  to 
knowing  and  willing  in  the  divine  being.  In  the  generation  of 
the  Son  and  the  procession  of  the  Spirit,  the  divine  knowledge 
and  the  divine  love  find  an  immanent  realization.  We  can  say 
that  there  are  three  wise,  three  eternal,  etc.,  when  we  speak  of 
divine  persons ;  but,  using  the  terms  as  substantives,  we  must  say, 
One  Wise,  One  Eternal,  etc.1  We  must  avoid  opposite  errors  and 
steer  between  them.  To  shun  the  Arian  error,  we  must  avoid  the 
terms  ‘  diversity  ’  and  ‘  difference  ’  and  use  the  word  ‘  distinc¬ 
tion.’  To  preserve  the  simplicity  of  the  divine  nature,  we  must 
avoid  the  terms  ‘  separation  ’  and  ‘  division,’  as  if  the  whole  were 
divided  into  parts.  To  avoid  the  loss  of  equality,  the  term  ‘  dis¬ 
parity  ’  must  be  shunned.  To  preserve  similitude,  ‘  alien  ’  and 
‘discrepant’  must  be  avoided.  To  escape  Sabellianism,  ‘singu¬ 
larity’  must  be  avoided,  and  the  word  ‘single’  (unions),  lest  the 
number  of  persons  be  destroyed.  The  same  is  to  be  said  of  the 
term  ‘  solitary,’  in  order  that  the  society  ( consortium )  of  persons 
may  not  be  done  away  with.2 

In  treating  of  the  Incarnation,  Aquinas  insisted  that  the  human 
nature  of  Christ  is  individual,  not  the  nature  of  mankind  generally. 
Yet  it  was  no  human  person ,  it  was  personal  only  as  belonging  to 
a  more  exalted  person,  and  as  having  the  capacity  and  destination 
to  be  personal.3 

In  contrast  with  the  Pantheistic  ideas  of  John  Scotus,  creation 
was  considered  by  the  Schoolmen  to  be  an  act  of  the  divine  will. 
The  narrative  in  Genesis  was  commonly  taken  in  both  a  literal 
and  allegorical  sense.  The  spiritual  expositions,  says  Aquinas, 
must  be  framed  on  the  basis  of  the  literal  meaning,  which  is  first 
to  be  accepted. 

1  Aquinas,  Sum.  Theol.  P.  I.  qu.  36,  art.  4. 

2  Ibid.  P.  I.  qu.  31,  art.  2. 

3  Ibid.  P.  III.  qu.  2,  art.  2.  See  Schwane,  DO.  d.  mittleren  Zeit.  p.  269. 


238 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


In  keeping  with  the  whole  tendency  of  his  system,  Aquinas 
regarded  the  preservation  of  the  world  as  a  continuous  act  of 
creation,  an  opinion  which  Scotus  and  his  followers  rejected.  The 
end  of  creation  was  said  by  Aquinas  to  be  the  communication  of 
God’s  own  perfection,  “  which  is  His  goodness.”  1  “  God  acts  not 

for  His  own  advantage,  but  solely  by  reason  of  His  own  goodness.” 
The  radical  difference  between  the  Thomist  and  Scotist  schools 
appears  in  respect  to  the  question  of  the  divine  agency  in  its 
relation  to  the  activity  of  the  human  will,  or  divine  Providence  as 
concerned  with  the  choices  of  man.  Aquinas,  like  his  preceptor, 
Albert,  held  to  determinism.  There  are  second  causes,  but  God 
is  the  prime  mover,  acting  upon  them,  and,  in  the  case  of  the  will, 
so  to  speak,  within  them.  The  will  is  not  necessitated  when  it  is 
moved  by  God  to  act  in  a  particular  direction,  since  there  is  no 
external  constraint.  That  which  is  produced  is  the  inward  incli¬ 
nation  itself.  “God  in  moving  the  will  does  not  coerce  it,  since 
He  gives  to  it  its  own  inclination.  To  be  moved  by  the  will  is  to 
be  moved  by  one’s  self,  that  is,  by  an  internal  principle  ;  but  that 
intrinsic  principle  may  be  from  another  extrinsic  principle ;  and 
thus  to  be  moved  of  one’s  self  is  not  inconsistent  with  being  moved 
by  another.”2  In  this  way,  “God  is  the  cause  of  all  the  acts  of 
agents,”  whatever  may  be  their  nature.  Yet  Thomas  denies  that 
God  is  the  author  of  moral  evil.  He  follows  Augustine  in  main¬ 
taining  that  moral  evil  is  purely  negative,  the  absence  in  man 
of  what  should  be.  Being  negative,  it  cannot  be  the  object  of 
a  creative  act.  As  to  his  theodicy,  Aquinas  maintains  that  the 
defect  of  one  thing  may  redound  to  the  good  of  another.  Hence 
a  defect  in  one  particular  part  or  place  is  permitted  to  be. 
“There  were  not  the  life  of  the  lion,  if  there  were  not  the  slaying 
of  animals  ”  on  which  he  feeds,  “  nor  would  there  be  the  patience 
of  martyrs,  if  it  were  not  for  the  persecution  of  tyrants.” 3  It  is 

1  “  (Deus)  intendit  solum  communicare  suam  perfectionem,  quae  est  ejus 
bonitas.”  Acting  from  no  sense  of  need,  He  is  “  maxime  liberalis.”  Sum.  Theol. 
P.  I.  qu.  44,  art.  4. 

2  “  Deus  movendo  voluntatem  non  cogit  ipsam,  quia  dat  et  ejus  propriam  in- 
clinationem.  Moveri  voluntate  est  moveri  ex  se,  id  est,  a  principio  intrin- 
seco,  sed  illud  principium  intrinsecum  potest  esse  ab  alio  principio  extrinseco,” 
etc.  Ibid.  P.  I.  qu.  105,  art.  4. 

3  It  belongs  to  the  Providence  of  God  to  permit  “  quosdam  defectus  esse  in 
aliquibus  particularibus  rebus,  ne  impediatur  bonum  universi  perfectum.  Si 
enim  omnia  mala  impedirentur,  multa  bona  deessent  universo.  Non  enim  esset 


MEDLEVAL  THEOLOGY 


239 


desirable  that  there  should  be  beings,  “  the  order  of  the  universe 
requires  that  there  should  be  some  beings,  who  can  depart  from 
goodness  and  sometimes  do  thus  depart.”  In  instituting  the  order 
of  the  universe,  which  is  good,  God  “  by  consequence,  and,  as  it 
were,  by  accident,”  causes  that  which  is  corrupt  in  it.1  Sin  is  thus 
made  to  be  the  necessary  means  of  the  greatest  good.  Respect¬ 
ing  divine  precepts  which  forbid  moral  evil,  the  distinction  had 
been  previously  made  between  the  secret  or  decretive,  and  the 
revealed  or  preceptive  will  of  God.  “Those  things,”  says  Peter 
Lombard,  “  which  God  has  commended  or  prohibited  to  all,  He 
has  willed  to  be  done  or  avoided  by  some  but  not  by  all.” 2  The 
distinction  was  adopted  by  Alexander  of  Hales  and  is  thus  set 
forth  by  Aquinas  :  “  God  can  be  said  metaphorically  to  will  that 
which  He  does  not  will  in  the  proper  sense.  The  exertion  of  His 
agency  is  always  in  accord  with  the  will  in  the  sense  of  His  good 
pleasure,”  i.e.,  the  decretive  will,  “  but  this  is  not  the  case  with 
regard  to  his  precepts  or  counsels.”3  That  this  world  is  the  best 
possible,  the  best  within  the  power  of  God  to  produce,  was  taught 
by  Anselm  and  Abelard.  But  Aquinas  (and  with  him  Durandus) 
held  that  while  no  beneficial  change  within  the  system  is  conceiv¬ 
able,  since  the  effect  of  such  a  change  would  be  to  break  up  the 
perfection  of  the  parts  in  their  natural  relation,  like  the  stretching 
of  a  single  chord  of  a  harp,  yet  there  might  have  been,  had  God 
so  willed,  without  any  disaster,  an  enlargement  of  the  system  by 
additions.  From  the  determinism  of  Aquinas,  Scotus  dissented, 
and  hence,  also,  from  not  a  few  of  the  inferences  drawn  from  it. 

The  Schoolmen  were  Creationists.  Aquinas  distinguished  be¬ 
tween  the  sensitive  or  animal  soul  which  man  has  in  common  with 
the  brutes,  and  the  intellective  soul.  The  former  is  propagated 
physically,  the  latter  is  immediately  created.4  Aquinas  argues  for 
the  immortality  of  the  soul  from  its  simple  and  indivisible  nature 
and  from  its  power  of  cognizing  realities  independent  of  time  and 
space.5  Scotus  denied  the  validity  of  the  proofs  of  immortality 

vita  leonis,”  etc.  Ibid.  P.  I.  qu.  22,  art.  2.  See  Baur’s  exposition,  Die  Christl. 
Lehre  von  der  Dreieinigkeit ,  etc.  Vol.  II.  p.  736. 

1  Ibid.  P.  I.  qu.  48,  art.  2.  2  Sent.  I.  Dist.  45  F. 

3  “  Operatio  semper  est  eadem  cum  voluntate  beneplaciti,  non  autem  prae- 
ceptum  vel  consilium.”  Sum.  Theol.  P.  I.  qu.  19,  art.  n,  12. 

4  “  impossible  est  quod  virtus  quae  est  in  semine  sit  productiva  intellectivi 
principii.”  Ibid.  P.'I.  qu.  118,  art.  2. 

5  “  Sensus  non  cognoscit  esse  nisi  sub  hie  et  nunc;  sed  intellectus^apprehen- 


240 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


which  were  drawn  from  reason.  The  question  whether  the  soul  is 
naturally  immortal  was  long  debated,  and  was  at  last  decided  in 
the  affirmative  by  the  Council  of  the  Lateran,  under  Pope  Leo.  X., 
in  1513. 

The  distinction  in  man  between  the  image  and  the  similitude  of 
God  was  thus  defined  by  Peter  Lombard  :  “  the  image  consists  in 
the  cognition  of  truth;  the  similitude  in  the  love  of  virtue.”1 
With  some  differences  of  statement,  the  Schoolmen  adhered 
essentially  to  this  distinction.  They  followed  Augustine  in  ascrib¬ 
ing  to  man  the  pura  naturalia ,  the  natural  powers  of  reason  and 
will,  and  the  supernatural  gift ;  the  gift,  superadded  of  God’s 
grace,  —  spiritual  excellence  or  righteousness.  On  the  one  hand, 
man  was  adapted  through  the  physical  and  mental  powers  which 
w£re  inseparable  from  his  nature  to  this  mundane  existence.  On 
the  other  hand,  he  received  a  further  endowment  whereby  he  was 
brought  into  communion  with  God.  But  when  and  on  what 
terms  was  the  superadded  righteousness  communicated?  In 
answering  this  question  the  two  schools  parted  company.  Ac¬ 
cording  to  Aquinas  it  was  a  gift  outright,  bestowed  on  man  simul¬ 
taneously  with  his  creation.2  According  to  Scotus,  time  elapsed 
during  which  he  was  in  a  state  of  nature.3  Moreover,  there  was 
a  movement  of  will,  a  concurrence,  a  receptive  act  on  the  part  of 
man.  Peter  Lombard  had  likened  the  acquisition  of  the  super¬ 
natural  gift  to  the  marriage  of  the  soul  to  God,  there  being  a  prior 
consent  on  the  part  of  Adam.  From  this  difference,  important 
corollaries  followed. 

Through  the  fall  of  Adam  it  was  the  common  doctrine  that  the 
gratia  gratum  faciens  —  original  righteousness  —  was  forfeited  and 
lost.  Man  was  left  in  the  state  of  nature  —  in  statu  purorum 
naturalium.  But  as  to  the  extent  of  the  effect  wrought,  the 
Thomist  and  the  Scotist  were  again  divided.  Aquinas  taught 
that  there  is  introduced  a  disorder  in  the  powers  of  the  soul ; 
wounds  are  inflicted.4  There  is  ignorance  of  God,  aversion  to  the 
true  good,  a  great  weakening  of  the  powers  of  moral  resistance, 

dit  esse  absolute  et  secundum  omne  tempus.”  Hence  the  natural  desire  “  esse 
semper.”  But  this  desire  “  non  potest  esse  inane.”  Ibid.  P.  I.  qu.  76,  art.  6. 

1  Sent.  Lib.  II.  Dist.  16  D. 

2  Ibid.  P.  I.  qu.  95,  art.  1.  3  Ibid.  II.  distinct.  39. 

4  “  Hoec  autem  originalis  justitia  subtracta  est  per  peccatum  primi  parentis 
.  .  .  et  ipsa  destitutio  vulneratio  naturre  dicitur.”  Sum.  Theol.  P.  II.  1,  qu.  85, 
art.  3. 


MEDIAEVAL  THEOLOGY 


241 


a  vehement  propensity  for  sensuous  gratification.  Prior  to  the 
fall,  so  Aquinas  taught,  man  had  a  natural  power  to  fulfil  the 
divine  law,  not,  however,  from  the  motive  of  love  to  God,  for 
which  the  gift  of  supernatural  grace  was  required.  After  the  fall, 
even  that  power  vanished.  The  principle  of  sin  was  designated 
by  the  Schoolmen  as  “  concupiscence,”  which  included  inordinate 
desires  in  general,  the  sexual  passion  being  the  prominent  element. 
By  the  fall,  Aquinas  held,  man  lost  his  freedom  and  was  reduced 
to  a  state  of  helplessness  as  regards  spiritual  excellence.  The 
transmission  of  sin  was  explained  by  the  unity  of  the  race  and 
the  possession  of  a  common  nature  which  is  transmitted  from 
the  parent  of  the  race.  Scotus  contended  that  by  the  loss  of 
original  righteousness,  the  natural  powers  of  man  are  not  directly 
affected,  but  become  inordinate  for  want  of  the  check  derived 
from  divine  grace.  Concupiscence  as  a  native  desire  is  not 
sinful.  It  brings  guilt  only  through  the  consent  of  the  will  which 
by  the  fall  is  not  wholly  deprived  of  freedom. 

Of  course  the  problem  of  the  responsible  connection  of  the  race 
with  Adam  and  of  the  method  of  the  transmission  of  sin  from  him 
to  his  posterity  is  discussed  by  Aquinas.  We  have  already  seen 
how  it  was  handled  by  Anselm.  Before  reviewing  the  solution  of 
Aquinas,  a  few  words  may  be  said  on  the  way  in  which  it  was  dealt 
with  by  the  “Master  of  Sentences,”  the  author  of  that  text-book  of 
theology  in  the  Middle  Ages  which  held  its  place  for  centuries  in 
the  European  universities.  Peter  Lombard  presents  the  doctrine 
of  Augustine  in  its  essential  parts,  with  abundant  citations  from  his 
writings.  Sin  did  not  spread  in  the  world,  he  affirms,  by  imitation 
of  a  bad  example,  but  by  propagation,  and  appears  in  every  one  at 
birth.1  Original  sin  is  not  mere  liability  to  punishment  for  the 
first  sin,  but  involves  sin  and  guilt.  That  first  sin  not  only  ruined 
Adam,  but  the  whole  race  likewise ;  since  from  him  we  derive  at 
once  condemnation  and  sin.  That  original  sin  in  us  is  concupis¬ 
cence.  Our  nature  was  vitiated  in  Adam ;  “since  all  were  that 
one  man ;  that  is,  were  in  him  materialiter .”  We  were  in  him 
materialiter ,  casualiter ,  or  seminally.  The  body  is  wholly  de¬ 
rived  from  him.  It  is  the  doctrine  of  the  Lombard  that  each 
soul  is  created  by  itself,  but  is  corrupted  by  contact  with  the 
material  part  which  is  vitiated  in  Adam.2  He  gives  this  explicit 

1  Sent.  II.,  Lib.  II.  Dist.  XXX.  (Ed.  Cologne,  1576.) 

2  Ibid.  Lib.  II.  Dist.  XXXI.  XXXII. 


R 


242 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


answer  to  the  problem  which  Augustine  declines  to  solve.  The 
law  of  propagation,  says  Peter  Lombard,  is  not  suspended  in  con¬ 
sequence  of  the  entrance  of  sin  into  the  world  ;  and  the  corruption 
of  the  soul  in  each  case  is  an  inevitable  result  of  its  conjunction 
with  the  body.  Augustine,  in  the  Encheiridion ,  had  admitted  that 
the  sins  of  more  immediate  parents,  as  far  back  as  the  third  or 
fourth  generation,  may  be  imputed  to  the  child,  but  had  not  posi¬ 
tively  sanctioned  this  view.  The  Lombard  argues  that  he  could 
not  have  entertained  it  without  inconsistency,  since  it  would  be 
incompatible  with  his  doctrine  that  the  sin  and  punishment  of 
infants  are  comparatively  light.1  He  does  not  deny  the  position 
of  Anselm  that  sin  belongs  to  the  will;2  yet  he  is  careful  to  say 
that  the  soul  on  uniting  with  the  body  becomes  ipso  facto  corrupt ; 
since  if  an  act  of  self-determination  be  supposed  to  intervene,  it 
would  be  actual,  and  not  original,  sin.  On  the  whole,  his  repre¬ 
sentations  accord  with  what  we  have  explained  to  be  the  idea  of 
Anselm. 

We  turn  now  to  the  discussion  of  the  subject  by  Aquinas.  This 
most  acute  and  profound  writer  manifests  caution  in  handling  so 
difficult  a  theme ;  but  his  conclusions,  as  might  be  expected,  coin¬ 
cide  with  the  dogma  of  Augustine.  Aquinas  says  that  “although 
the  soul  is  not  transmitted,  since  the  virtus  seminis  cannot  cause 
a  rational  soul,”  yet  by  this  means  “  human  nature  is  transmitted 
from  parent  to  offspring,  and  with  it,  at  the  same  time,  the  infec¬ 
tion  of  nature.”3  Hence  the  new-born  child  is  made  partaker  of 
the  sin  of  the  first  parent,  since  from  him  he  received  his  nature 
through  the  agency  of  the  generative  function.  No  man  is  pun¬ 
ished  except  for  his  own  sin.  We  are  punished  for  the  sins  of 
near  ancestors  only  so  far  as  we  follow  them  in  their  transgres¬ 
sions.4  The  main  point  in  the  explication  of  original  sin  is  the 
nature  of  our  union  with  Adam.  This  Aquinas  sets  forth  by  an 
analogy.  The  will,  by  an  imperative  volition,  bids  a  limb,  or 
member  of  the  body,  commit  a  sin.  Now  an  act  of  homicide  is 
not  imputed  to  the  hand  considered  as  distinct  from  the  body,  but 
is  imputed  to  it  as  far  as  it  belongs  to  the  man  as  part  of  him,  and 
is  moved  by  the  first  principle  of  the  motion  in  him,  —  that  is,  the 
will.  Being  thus  related,  the  hand,  were  it  possessed  of  a  nature 
capable  of  sin,  would  be  guilty.  So  all  who  are  born  of  Adam  are 

1  Sent.  Lib.  II.  Dist.  XXXIII.  3  Sum.  Thcol.  P.  II.  qu.  8i,  art.  i. 

2  Ibid.  Dist.  XLII.  4  mdm  IL  qu>  8i,  art.  2. 


MEDIEVAL  THEOLOGY 


243 

to  be  considered  as  one  man.  They  are  as  the  many  members  of 
one  body. 

“Thus  the  disorder  ( inordinatio )  which  is  in  that  man  who 
sprang  from  Adam,  is  not  voluntary  by  the  act  of  his  own  will,  but 
by  the  will  of  the  first  parent,  who  moves  ‘  motione  generations ,’ 
all  who  derive  their  origin  from  him,  just  as  the  soul’s  will  moves 
all  the  limbs  to  an  act ;  whence  the  sin  which  is  derived  from  the 
first  parent  to  his  posterity,  is  called  original :  in  the  same  way 
that  the  sin  which  is  derived  from  the  soul  to  the  members  of  the 
body  is  called  actual ;  and  as  the  actual  sin  which  is  committed 
by  a  bodily  member  is  the  sin  of  that  member,  only  so  far  as  that 
member  pertains  to  the  man  himself — est  aliquid  ipsius  hominis  — 
so  original  sin  belongs  to  an  individual,  only  so  far  as  he  receives 
his  nature  from  the  first  parent.”  1  It  may  be  remarked  that 
that  among  others,  Cajetan,  the  renowned  commentator  of  Aquinas, 
in  the  sixteenth  century  undertakes  to  explain  and  defend  the 
analogy.  The  descendant  of  Adam  belongs  to  Adam,  as  a  hand 
to  the  body ;  and  from  Adam,  through  natural  generation,  he  at 
once  receives  his  nature  and  becomes  a  partaker  of  sin. 

The  realistic  character  of  Aquinas’s  doctrine  appears  strongly 
in  the  argument  by  which  he  attempts  to  prove  that  no  sins  but 
the  first  sin  of  the  first  man  are  imputed  to  us.2  He  sharply  dis¬ 
tinguishes  between  nature  and  person.  Those  things  which 
directly  pertain  to  an  individual,  like  personal  acts,  are  not  trans¬ 
mitted  by  natural  generation.  The  grammarian  does  not  thus 
communicate  to  his  offspring  the  science  of  grammar.  Accidental 
properties  of  the  individual  may,  indeed,  in  some  cases,  descend 
from  father  to  son,  as,  for  example,  swiftness  of  body.  But  quali¬ 
ties  which  are  purely  personal  are  not  propagated.  As  the  per¬ 
son  has  his  own  native  properties  and  the  qualities  given  by  grace, 
so  the  nature  has  both.  Original  righteousness  was  a  gracious  gift 
to  the  nature  at  the  outset,  and  was  lost  in  Adam  in  the  first  sin. 
“Just  as  original  righteousness  would  have  been  transmitted  to  his 
posterity  at  the  same  time  with  the  nature,  so  also  is  the  opposite 
disorder  {inordinatio) .  But  other  actual  sins  of  the  first  parent, 
or  of  other  later  parents,  do  not  corrupt  the  nature,  as  concerns  its 
qualities  {quantum  ad  id  quod  natures  est),  but  only  as  concerns 
the  qualities  of  the  person.” 

Original  righteousness  was  principally  and  primarily  in  the  sub- 
1  Sum.  Theol.  II.  qu.  81, 'art.  1.  2  Ibid.  art.  2. 


244 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


jection  of  the  will  to  God.  From  the  alienation  of  the  will  from 
God,  disorder  has  arisen  in  all  the  other  powers  of  the  soul.  Hence 
the  deprivation  of  original  righteousness,  through  which  the  will 
was  subject  to  God,  is  the  first  or  formal  element  in  original  sin, 
while  concupiscence  or  “  ino7'dinatio  ”  is  the  second,  or  material 
element.  Thus  original  sin  affects  the  will,  in  the  first  instance. 
Its  first  effect  is  the  wrong  bent  of  the  will.  Aquinas’s  analysis  of 
native,  inherent  depravity  is  substantially  accordant  with  that  of 
Anselm. 

The  doctrine  of  the  immaculate  conception  of  Mary  was  denied 
by  Anselm,  and  when  a  festival  in  her  honor  was  established  at 
Lyons  (1140)  by  those  who  espoused  this  opinion,  it  was  com¬ 
bated  by  Bernard  of  Clairvaux,  who  nevertheless  held  to  her  per¬ 
fect  ante-natal  sanctification.  It  was  even  rejected  by  Bonaventura,1 
as  well  as  by  Aquinas  ;  but  it  was  pronounced  a  probable  truth  by 
Scotus.2  It  became  more  and  more  a  tenet  of  the  Franciscans,  a 
tenet  against  which  the  Dominicans  protested.  But  despite  this 
difference,  there  was  a  prevailing  impulse  to  glorify  the  Virgin  as 
a  mediator  with  her  son,  and  fitted  to  be  such  through  her  spot¬ 
less  innocence  procured  through  grace  by  the  retrospective  effect 
of  the  Redeemer’s  work.  A  kind  of  worship  was  accorded  to  her 
even  by  Thomas,  intermediate  between  strictly  divine  honors  which 
were  due  to  God  alone  and  the  type  of  homage  offered  to  the 
saints. 

1  “Teneamus  secundum  quod  communis  opinio  tenet,  Virginis  sanctifica- 
tionem  fuisse  post  originalis  peccati  contractual. ”  Lib.  III.  Dist.  3,  art.  1. 

2  Summa,  P.  III.  qu.  27,  art.  2. 


CHAPTER  VII 


SCHOLASTIC  DOCTRINES  I  THE  ATONEMENT  —  CONVERSION  AND  SANC¬ 
TIFICATION - JUSTIFICATION - THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  PAPACY 

Aquinas  retains  the  fundamental  idea  of  Anselm’s  theory  of  the 
Atonement,  —  the  idea  of  a  full,  objective  satisfaction  for  sin.  Yet 
such  is  his  conception  of  God  as  an  absolute  being  that  he  denies 
the  strict  necessity  of  the  death  of  Christ  as  a  means  of  redemption. 
He  even  says  that  God  is  at  full  liberty  to  pardon  sins  outright,  as  a 
man  may  forgive  the  injuries  done  to  himself.  This  is  a  point  in 
which  Aquinas  departs  from  Anselm’s  view.  Yet  Aquinas  holds  to 
a  certain  necessity  in  this  case,  since  the  mode  of  redemption 
chosen  of  God  is  the  best  and  the  most  adapted  to  the  end  in 
view.1  The  Creator  cannot  satisfy  for  sins,  on  account  of  God’s 
infinite  majesty,  the  infinite  good  —  even  God  —  of  which  sin 
deprives  man,  and  by  reason  of  the  possible  repetition  of  Adam’s 
sin  in  an  endless  series  of  individuals.2  The  sufferings  and  death 
of  Christ  are  manifestations  of  the  greatness  of  God’s  love  which 
are  suited  to  awaken  a  reciprocal  love  in  men,  and  to  furnish  to 
them  an  example  of  holy  obedience.  Besides,  Satan  who  de¬ 
ceived  man  is  by  man  overcome,  and  is  displaced  from  a  domin¬ 
ion  over  men  to  which  he  had  no  right,  yet  under  which  God  had 
righteously  left  them.  Christ  in  His  humanity  has  voluntarily  en¬ 
dured  every  variety  of  suffering,  including  the*pain  which  springs 
from  sympathy  with  sinful  men.  All  this  He  has  endured  of  His 
own  free  will,  in  a  spirit  of  obedience  to  God.  By  this  means, 
satisfaction  is  made  for  sin.  He  satisfies  who  renders  to  an 
offended  party  that  which  he  loves  more  than  he  hates  the  offence. 
God  ever  loves  us  for  the  nature  which  He  has  created,  yet  He 
ever  hates  us  as  far  as  we  are  sinners.  By  reason  of  the  exceed- 

1  Sum.  Theol.  P.  III.  qu.  46,  art.  2. 

2  Ibid.  P.  III.  qu.  46,  art.  3.  Ibid.  art.  4. 

245 


246 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


ing  love  of  Christ,  the  extent  and  manifoldness  of  His  sufferings, 
the  value  of  His  life,  Christ  has  in  this  way  made  satisfaction  for 
the  sins  of  men  not  excepting  the  sins  of  those  who  put  him  to 
death.  In  this  satisfaction  is  included  His  universal  obedience, 
his  fulfilment  of  the  ceremonial  law,  He  being  the  offering  therein 
typified,  and  of  the  moral  law,  to  which  he  was  obedient  unto 
death.  He  has  rendered  an  equivalent  for  the  dishonor  which 
God  has  suffered.  It  is  a  complete  compensation.  Thereby  He 
is  placated  as  regards  all  the  offences  of  those  who  are  joined  to 
Christ.  How  is  the  atoning  work  of  Christ  available  for  the  sal¬ 
vation  of  men?  It  is  through  hisqnerit  which  redounds  to  their 
benefit.  Just  as  he  who  arrogates  to  himself  more  than  belongs  to 
him  justly  suffers  a  forfeiture  of  things  to  which  he  has  a  right,  so 
he  who  relinquishes  freely^jn  a  righteous  spirit  that  which  *he 
justly  possesses,  is  entitled  to  a  rdwrafccf:  The  explanation  of  the 
transfer  of  merit  is  in  the  conception  of  the  mystical  union  of 
Christ  with  His  members.1  When  two  persons  become  one  through 
love,  the  one  can  satisfy  for  the  other.  It  is  just  as  if  the  hand 
were  to  atone  by  a  meritorious  act  for  a  sin  which  had  been  com¬ 
mitted  by  the  foot.  Christ  is  the  head,  mankind  are  the  mem¬ 
bers  ;  His  followers  actually,  the  whole  race  potentially.  A  full 
satisfaction  for  sin  and  guilt  has  been  rendered  by  the  social  body, 
taken  as  a  whole,  through  its  head.  Yet  Aquinas  does  not  adhere 
with  strict  consistency  to  the  conception  of  the  Atonement  as  •ob¬ 
jective.  One  condition  of  our  obtaining  forgiveness  of  sins  is  love 
on  our  part,  excited  in  us  by  the  love  of  Christ.  For  sins  after 
baptism  we,  like  Christ,  must  endure  pain  and  punishment.  The 
Passion  of  Christ  is  said  to  be  the  cause  of  remission  of  sins  in 
three  ways,  first  as  calling  out  love  in  us,  secondly,  by  the  mode  of 
redemption,  the  whole  Church  being,  in  connection  with  its  head, 
reckoned  as  one  person,  and  third,  as  the  flesh  in  which  He  en¬ 
dured  suffering  is  an  efficient  instrument  whereby  “  His  passions 
and  actions  operate  through  a  divine  power  for  the  expulsion  of 
sin.”  In  one  point,  and  that  a  very  important  one,  Aquinas  is  in 
full  accord  with  Anselm.  The  satisfaction  of  Christ  is  pronounced 
to  be  not  only  a  sufficient,  but  a  “  superabundant  ”  satisfaction  for 
the  sins  of  the  world.  * 

1  “  Caput  et  membra  sunt  quasi  una  persona  mystica,  et  ideo  satisfactio. 
Christi  ad  omnes  (ideles  pertinet  ”...  Sum.  Theol.  P.  III.  qu.  48,  art.  2. 
He  is  united  to  the  race.  Ibid.  art.  3;  cf.  Schwane,  DG.  d.  mittl.  Zeit ,  p.  323. 


MEDI/EVAL  THEOLOGY 


247 


The  theory  of  the)  Atonement  advocated  by  Scotus  j  is  founded 
on  a  radical  difference  in  his  philosophy  from  that  of  Anselm  and 
Aquinas.  It  is  true  that  Aquinas  says  that  it  would  be  possible 
for  God  to  forgive  without  an  Atonement,  but  this  is  said  merely 
in  deference  to  the  New  Platonic  idea  of  the  Absolute  which 
enters  into  his  conception  of  God.  His  exposition  of  the  Atone¬ 
ment  carries  this  concession  no  farther.  Scotus  denies  the  fun¬ 
damental  principles  of  Anselm.  The  fundamental  principle  of 
Scotus  is  the  absoluteness  of  the  divine  will.  The  cause  and 
ground  of  all  merit  is  “the  divine  acceptance,”  the  divine  will  to 
affix  this  or  that  estimate  to  whatever  is  done  or  suffered.  There 
is  no  objective  criterion  of  value  inhering  in  the  thing  itself.  A 
thing  is  good  because  God  loves  it.  It  is  the  reverse  of  the  prop¬ 
osition  that  He  loves  it  because  it  is  good.  Had  God  pleased, 
man  might  have  been  redeemed  by  acts  of  love  done  by  Adam  or 
by  an  angel.1  Scotus  maintains  that  the  merits  of  Christ  are 
finite,  for  He  does  not  merit  as  God,  but  as  man.  Hence, 
weighed  by  their  intrinsic  value  they  cannot  be  accounted  infi¬ 
nite,  or  as  standing  in  the  room  of  that  which  is  infinite.  But  in 
the  circumstances  and  the  dignity  of  Him  who  merits,  there  is  an 
extrinsic  reason  for  accepting  his  merit  as  infinite,  for  counting  it 
as  being  what  it  really  is  not.2  The  merit  of  Christ  thus  derives 
the  value  attached  to  it  from  the  divine  acceptance.  It  is  a  merit 
of  “  congruity  ”  and  not  of  “  condignity.”  That  is  to  say,  there  is 
that  in  it  which  is  suitable  for  a  sort  or  amount  of  recompense  to 
which  its  real  desert  bears  no  actual  proportion.  If  it  were  a 
merit  of  condignity  it  would  carry  in  it  a  title  to  the  complete  bene¬ 
fit  awarded  to  it.  Scotus  says  that  it  were  possible  for  an  angel  or 
a  mere  man,  begotten  without  sin,  to  redeem  mankind,  but  God 
has  chosen  this  way  as  a  means  of  exciting  love  in  us.  He  decides 
to  conside r  the  merits  of  Christ  a  full  atonement,  to  accept  them  for 
more  than  their  inherent  value,  independently  of  this  acceptance. 

Thenceforward,  we  have  in  the  course  of  Christian  theology  two 
general  views  of  the  Atonement.  The  first,  which  is  often  called 
the  Anselmic,  and  not  infrequently  the  judicial,  theory,  makes  the 
atoning  work  of  Christ  the  absolute,  objective  equivalent  of  .the 
punishment  deserved  by  sin,  and  something  required  of  divine 
justice  in  the  administration  of  the  world.  It  embodied  itself  in 

1  Oxon.  L.  3,  Dist.  20,  qu.  1,  schol.  3;  cf.  Schwane,  DG.  etc.,  p.  330. 

2  Ibid.  L.  3,  Dist.  19,  qu.  unica;  cf.  Schwane,  p.  330. 


248 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


the  formula  that  Christ  endured  the  penalty.  The  second  or  the 
Scotist  view  rejects  this  proposition,  and  brings  in  the  divine  will 
to  supply  a  deficiency,  to  eke  out  that  substitution  which  of  itself 
falls  short  of  being  an  equivalent.  If  we  look  at  the  principal, 
although  not  the  exclusive,  thought  of  Scotus  in  his  attempt  to 

(solve  the  problem,  we  find  in  him  the  moral  view,  which  makes  the 
value  of  the  sufferings  and  death  of  Christ  to  be  the  direct  impres¬ 
sion,  which  they  are  adapted  to  make,  of  the  forbearance  and 
compassionate  love  of  God. 

subject  of  the  divine  agency  in  thejconversion  and  sanc- 
of  the  soul,  the  Schoolmen  distinguish  between  preve- 
cooperative  grace.  It  is  this  distinction,  in  connection 
with  the  adoption  by  Aquinas  of  the  terms  descriptive  of  human 
merit  which  were  enshrined  in  the  current  orthodoxy,  that  raises 
the  question  whether  he  holds  fast  to  the  Augustinian  view.  The 
“  prevenient  ”  grace  of  God  is  said  to  act  upon  the  will,  enabling 
and  moving  it  to  turn  to  God.  This  effect  being  produced,  there 
follows  the  “  subsequent”  or  cooperative  grace,  whereby  the  divine 
work  in  the  soul  is  carried  forward  and  the  soul  is  qualified  to 
perform  good  works.  The  question  is  whether  a  real  agency  is 
attributed  to  the  will  in  the  reception  of  the  prevenient  grace  — 
of  the  prima  gratia  —  and  in  conjunction  with  the  continued 
influences  of  grace  after  this  initiative.  As  to  the  first  point, 
grace  being  at  the  outset  the  sole  efficient,  no  merit  belongs  to  its 
recipient.  But  in  respect  to  what  follows  upon  the  first  effect  of 
grace,  the  position  of  Aquinas  is  not  quite  so  clear.  We  cannot 
attribute  to  him  the  opinion  that  the  will  is  a  coefficient  merely  on 
account  of  the  statement  that  the  bondage  of  the  will  is  not  the 
destruction  of  the  will ;  for  herein  he  is  in  accord  with  Augustine. 
Aquinas  says  that  “  infused  virtue  is  produced  in  us  without  our¬ 
selves  acting ,  but  not  without  ourselves  consenting .”  But  this 
language  is  possible  to  a  believer  in  philosophical  determinism. 
Aquinas  does  not  affirm  the  existence  of  a  power  of  contrary 
choice  in  the  recipient  of  saving  grace,  even  if  he  does  not  explic¬ 
itly  deny  it.  If  we  are  governed  in  our  interpretation  by  his 
exposition  of  his  deterministic  creed  respecting  the  will,  we  must 
pronounce  him  a  strict  Augustinian.1  But  it  is  a  fair  question 

1  Even  Augustine,  as  we  have  seen,  was  not  a  determinist  as  concerns  the 
tmf alien  will.  See  supra,  p.  184. 


On  the 
tification 
nient  ana 


MEDIEVAL  THEOLOGY 


249 


whether  he  always  consistently  adhered  to  it.  Merit  is  ascribed  to 
man.  So  far  forth  as  his  new  life  springs  from  his  own  will,  it  is  1 
a  merit  of  congruity  alone,  since  the  blessing  or  reward  that  is 
bestowed  is  so  vastly  disproportioned  to  his  action.  But  so  far  as 
it  springs  from  the  agency  of  the  Spirit  of  God,  it  is  a  merit  of  con- 
dignity.  Perseverance  does  not  fall  under  the  head  of  merit, 
since  it  is  a  gift  outright  to  whomsoever  it  is  granted.  Alexander 
of  Hales  deviated  from  Augustinianism  in  attributing  to  men  good 
works  antecedent  to  the  infusion  of  grace.  Bonaventura  was  of 
the  same  mind.  The  Semi-Pelagian  opinion  was  definitely  set 
forth  by  Duns  Scotus.  Man  in  the  use  of  his  natural  powers,  which 
original  sin  has  left  unimpaired,  can  produce  within  himself  such 
dispositions  of  heart  as  to  prepare  himself  to  receive  and  to  merit, 
by  the  merit  of  congruity,  the  divine  grace.  This  grace  he  re-  i 
ceives,  but  can  resist,  and  he  can  fall  from  grace.  The  powers  of  / 
the  human  will,  apart  from  grace,  were  described  by  Occam  as 
sufficient  for  man’s  self-renewal,  so  far  as  reason  enables  us  to 
judge.  It  is  only  revelation  that  convinces  us  of  the  contrary. 

Justification!  is  an  act  of  God  imparting  righteousness,  and  being 
a^divine  act'll  is  momentary.  The  analysis  of  the  elements  of 
Justification  which  is  presented  by  Aquinas  gives  the  successive 
steps,  not  according  to  the  order  of  time,  but  in  the  order  of 
nature.1  There  is,  first,  the  infusion  of  grace  in  the  soul ;  second, 
the  motion  of  the  will  towards  God ;  third,  the  inward  turning 
away  from  sin ;  and,  fourth,  forgiveness.  Thus  right  feelings, 
incipient  love,  are  the  condition  precedent  of  the  bestowal  of  par¬ 
don.  The  Schoolmen  teach  that  it  is  faith  that  justifies.  The 
best  of  them  present  profound  and  spiritual  ideas  respecting  faith, 
yet  its  saving  quality  is  defined  by  them  to  consist  in  the  love  that 
enters  into  it.  It  is  “  Faith  formed  by  love.”  The  credence  given 
to  the  doctrines  of  the  Church,  when  the  animating  principle  of 
love  is  included  in  it  —  this  is  that  which  brings  salvation.  Hence 
faith  is  set  forth  by  Aquinas  as  a  virtue,  and  in  the  order  of  Chris¬ 
tian  virtues  stands  first.  In  truth,  a  subtle  legalism  pervades  the 
Scholastic  theory  concerning  what  is  required  in  the  Gospel  as 
the  condition  of  forgiveness.  This  characteristic  is  manifest  in 
the  use  that  was  made  of  the  distinction  between  implicit  and 
explicit  faith.  Explicit  faith  is  clearly  conscious  of  its  object, 
namely,  the  articles  of  the  creed.  Implicit  faith,  as  described  by 

1  Sum.  Theol.  P.  II.  i.  qu.  113,  arP 


250 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


Aquinas,  is  the  preparation  of  the  mind  “to  believe  what  divine 
Scripture  contains.”  By  him  bounds  are  set  to  implicit  or  un¬ 
developed  faith,  but  by  later  Schoolmen)  and  still  more  in  the 
practical  apprehension  of  the  people,  implicit  faith  was  resolved 
into  a  readiness  to  receive  whatever  the  Church,  the  authoritative 
teacher,  might  inculcate.  Thus,  very  easily,  and  very  commonly, 
an  unthinking  docility  was  allowed  to  be  substituted  for  enlight¬ 
ened  Christian  perceptions  of  truth.  The  spirit  of  legalism  is 
manifest  in  the  place  given  in  the  system  of  doctrine  to  the  dis¬ 
tinction  betweemthe  “precepts”  of  the  Gospel  and  the  “counsels,” 
in  the  observance  of  which,  Aquinas  teaches,  eternal  life  is  attained 
better  and  with  greater  facility.1  From  the  old  doctrine  of  works 
of  supererogation,  works  surpassing  the  limit  of  imperative  require¬ 
ments,  there  was  developed  by  Alexander  of  Hales  the  idea  of  a 
“treasury”  of  merits  derived  from  them,  and  of  a  basis  thus  laid 
for  the  doctrine  of  indulgences. 

Under  the  Scholastic  conception  of  Justification  and  of  the 
nature  of  faith,  no  foundation  for  assurance,  for  a  sure  and  estab¬ 
lished  confidence  in  one’s  Christian  standing,  could  exist.  Ac¬ 
cording  to  Aquinas,  the  only  means  open  for  attaining  an  assured 
hope  are  certain  signs  or  indications  which,  however,  afford  no 
certainty,  and  an  immediate  revelation  from  God  which  is  some¬ 
times  given  to  individuals  as  a  special  privilege. 

The  virtues  are  classified  by  Aquinas  on  the  principle  that  man 
is  capable  of  a  twofold  blessedness.  There  is  a  blessedness  which 
is  correlated  to  human  nature  in  itself  considered,  and  a  blessed¬ 
ness  which  surpasses  this  limit.  The  one  is  attainable  by  natural 
principles  ;  the  other  only  by  divine  power.  The,  last  is  a  certain 
participation  of  the  divine  nature.  Thus  we  have  the  natural 
virtues,  wisdom,  justice,  fortitude,  temperance  ;  and  the  theological 
virtues,  faith,  hope,  and  charity. 

The  nominalistic  theology  as  it  was  set  forth  by  Scotus  and 
Occam  was  within  the  recognized  pale  of  orthodoxy.  There 
flowed  from  it  important  results  in  the  domain  of  practical  religion. 
An  Augustinian  reaction,  of  which  Bradwardine,  a  contemporary 
of  Occam,  was  a  representative,  was  of  little  avail  to  stem  the  tide. 
In  connection  with  the  nominalistic  theology,  and  as  a  part  of  it, 
there  were  propagated  such  views  on  the  Sacraments  as  fomented 
the  prevailing  tendency  to  make  the  means  of  salvation  to  be  the 

1  Sum.  Theol.  P.  II.  i.  qu.  108,  art.  4. 


MEDIEVAL  THEOLOGY 


251 


performance  of  meritorious  works,  coupled  with  a  faith  of  which 
the  essence  was  an  unquestioning  submission  to  the  Church  as 
the  vehicle  of  revelation,  and  reliance  on  the  Sacraments  as  the 
channels  of  grace. 

The  influence  of  the  idea  of  the  Church  as  the  community  of 
the  faithful,  of  the  elect  children  of  God7"an  idea  which  retained 
a  degree  of  power  in  the  thoughts  of  Augustine,  continually  waned. 
More  and  more  the  Church  came  to  be  identified  with  the  visible, 
hierarchical  organization.  Patristic  authority,  running  back  to 
Cyprian,  and  even  farther,  could  be  appealed  to  in  support  of 
this  principle  at  the  root  of  the  mediaeval  conception ;  but  in  the 
carrying  out  of  this  principle  there  was  a  wide  gulf  between  the 
earlier  and  the  later  period.  The  exaltation  of  the  hierarchy, 
the  absolute  dependence  of  the  laity  upon  the  priesthood,  existed 
to  an  extent  unknown  in  the  patristic  age.  The  privileges  still 
left  to  the  laity  in  the  concerns  of  the  soul  are  so  scanty  as  to  be 
the  exception  that  proves  the  rule.  Significant  of  the  state  of 
thought  that  had  long  existed  is  the  language  of  Philip  the  Fair  in 
his  indignant  answer  to  the  haughty  rebuke  of  Boniface  VIII. : 
“  Holy  Mother  Church,  the  Spouse  of  Christ,  is  composed  not 
only  of  clergymen,  but  also  of  laymen.” 

The  conversion  of  the  Church  into  an  ecclesiastical  monarchy, 
with  almost  absolute  power  in  the  Regent  at  Rome,  was  not  the 
work  of  theologians.  Nor  was  its  success  in  building  up  a  world¬ 
wide  monarchy,  to  which  nations  and  kings  should  be  subject, 
owing,  as  a  main  cause,  to  their  craft  or  their  ambition.  The 
Schoolmen  came  forward  with  formulas  and  arguments  in  behalf 
of  the  result  of  an  ecclesiastical  development  which  had  grown 
out  of  tendencies  long  rife  in  the  Church,  and  out  of  the  condi¬ 
tions  of  European  society.  The  attempt  to  trace  the  growth  of 
hierarchical  prerogatives  and  of  the  papacy  would  take  us  into  the 
field  of  jurisprudence.  The  subject  belongs  more  to  a  record  of 
the  rise  and  progress  of  canon  law  than  to  the  history  of  doctrine. 
In  the  alterations  and  accretions  which  that  system  experienced 
from  time  to  time,  forgeries,  of  which  the  Pseudo-Isidorian  decre¬ 
tals  were  far  from  being  the  exclusive  example  —  a  fraud  which 
nobody,  at  that  time,  was  competent  to  detect  and  expose  —  were 
an  auxiliary  cause.  But  the  structure,  as  a  whole,  arose  from  cir¬ 
cumstances  involved  in  the  relation  of  the  Church  to  the  semi- 


252 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


o 

civilized  nations,  and  from  the  judaistic  elements  mingled  in  its 
faith  and  its  ceremonies.  The  compilation  of  Gratian  in  the 
middle  of  the  twelfth  century  was  succeeded  by  the  rapid  growth 
of  a  system  of  canon  law.  Enlarged  collections,  each  outdoing 
its  precursor  in  exalting  priestly  and  papal  authority,  appeared  in 
the  next  following  centuries.  Under  such  Popes  as  Alexander 
III.  and  Innocent  III.,  new  decrees  of  councils  and  ordinances  of 
Popes  carried  the  pretensions  of  the  papal  see  to  the  highest  point 
short  of  an  apotheosis  of  the  sovereign  pontiffs.  The  process 
went  on  through  the  reign  of  Boniface  VIII. 

1.  The  old  theory  of  the  equality  of  bishops  as  regards  the 
essential  basis  of  their  office  was  given  up.  The  Pope  was  not 
only  Vicar  of  St.  Peter  and  universal  bishop,  but  became  the 
Vicar  of  Christ,  or  of  God,  and  under  Christ,  the  fountain  of 
Episcopal  authority,  which  from  him  is  distributed  among  His 
fellow-bishops.  They  are  all  His  vicars.  Their  relation  to  the 
Pope  was  compared  by  Aquinas  to  that  of  a  Proconsul  to  an  Em¬ 
peror.  The  Pope  having  this  station,  supreme  legislative  power 
was  more  and  more  attributed  to  him,  and  along  with  it  a  co¬ 
extensive  judicial  authority.  To  him  was  ascribed  the  exclusive 
right  to  depose  bishops  as  well  as  to  confirm  their  appointment, 
to  summon  general  councils,  and  to  ratify,  or  to  veto,  their  doings, 
to  dispose  of  benefices  and  to  tax  the  churches,  to  grant  absolu¬ 
tion  in  all  cases  which  he  chose  to  reserve  to  himself,  and  to 
decree  canonization. 

2.  The  personal  infallibility  of  the  Pope  respecting  Christian 
doctrine  remained  a  subject  on  which  there  were  opposite  opin¬ 
ions.  Yet  papal  infallibility  is  approved  by  Aquinas  on  the  ground 
of  the  prayer  of  Christ  for  Peter  that  his  faith  might  not  fail  (Luke 
xxii.  32).  But  much  stress  is  laid  on  a  priori  reasoning,  and  on  the 
injunction,  *  Feed  my  sheep  ’  (John  xxi.  16,  17).1  The  Thomist 
opinion  on  this  point  was  espoused  generally  by  the  Dominicans. 

3.  The  claims  of  the  Popes  to  a  superior  authority  in  relation 
to  kings  and  princes  were  explained  and  asserted  by  Aquinas. 
The  doctrine  was  that  the  two  swords,  emblems  of  temporal  and 
spiritual  authority,  were  given  to  Peter,  but  that  the  wielding  of 
the  temporal  sword  is  delegated  to  the  Civil  Power,  which,  how¬ 
ever,  is  answerable  for  the  use  of  it  to  the  successors  of  the  Apostle. 
To  the  Church  was  given  the  power  to  bind  and  to  loose,  and 

1  Sententt.  iv.  distinct.  24,  qu.  3,  art.  2,  ad.  1. 


MEDI/EVAL  THEOLOGY 


253 


this  stretches  over  princes  as  well  as  subjects.  The  sentence  in 
the  bull  of  Boniface  VIII.  (1302),  the  Unar?i  sanctam,  which 
declares  that  every  human  being  is  subject  to  the  Roman  pontiff, 
occurs  in  Aquinas.  If  the  priesthood,  according  to  the  current 
doctrine  and  practice,  were  raised  far  above  the  laity,  the  Popes 
were  exalted  to  a  corresponding  height  above  all  other  holders  of 
the  priestly  office. 


CHAPTER  VIII 


SCHOLASTIC  DOCTRINES  :  THE  SACRAMENTS 

The  channels  through  which  the  grace  of  Christ  is  conveyed  by 
the  clergy  are  the  Sacraments.  The  general  theory  on  this  sub¬ 
ject  was  framed  upon  the  basis  of  Augustine’s  definition  that  a 
sacrament  is  “  the  visible  sign  of  an  invisible  grace.”  To  this 
conception  there  were  added,  by  Hugo  of  St.  Victor,  and  Peter 
Lombard,  the  additional  elements  that  the  Sacrament  is  instituted 
by  Christ,  is  the  visible  image  of  the  grace  which  it  denotes,  and 
confers  this  very  grace  on  the  recipient.  Aquinas  gives  a  sys¬ 
tematic  form  to  the  statements  of  the  earlier  Schoolmen.  There  is 
a  sanctifying  efficacy  in  the  Sacraments.  The  cause  of  the  sancti¬ 
fication  flowing  thence  is  Christ,  all  grace  being  ultimately  due  to 
His  sacrifice ;  holiness  and  virtue  are  its  form ,  its  immediate 
product ;  eternal  life  is  its  end.  “  In  the  new  covenant,  through 
the  form  they  have  their  sanctifying  power,  while  in  the  matter 
they  have  their  sign.”1  Since  grace  is  invisible,  the  sign  —  the 
significatio  —  of  the  Sacrament  is  by  means  of  things  visible. 
It  must  be  divinely  instituted  since  it  is  God  who  is  the 
Sanctifier. 

The  need  of  Sacraments  is  founded  by  Aquinas  on  that  pecul¬ 
iarity  of  our  nature  by  which  we  are  led  up  to  spiritual  and  intelli¬ 
gible  things  by  means  of  things  corporeal  and  sensible,  on  the 
effect  of  sin  in  rendering  us  more  subject  to  things  material,  and 
on  the  fact  that  our  activity  here  has  to  do  with  corporeal  exist¬ 
ences.  Aquinas  conceded  that  had  man  remained  in  a  state  of 
innocence  the  Sacraments  would  not  have  been  necessary. 

The  number  of  the  Sacraments  remained  quite  unsettled  until 
the  middle  of  the  eleventh  century.  Abelard  and  Hugo  of  St. 
Victor  had  made  five  to  be  the  number.  Peter  Lombard  em- 

1  Schvvane,  DG.  d.  mittl.  Zeit ,  p.  589. 

254 


MEDIEVAL  THEOLOGY 


255 


braced  seven  in  his  list,  orders  and  extreme  unction  being  added 
to  the  five.  This  number  of  seven  was  accepted  by  the  leading 
Schoolmen  of  the  thirteenth  century,  but  was  not  sanctioned  by 
an  ecclesiastical  decision  until  the  Council  of  Florence  in  1439. 1 
It  comprises  Baptism,  Confirmation,  the  Eucharist,  Penance, 
Extreme  Unction,  Orders,  and  Marriage.  Baptism  and  the 
Eucharist  were  usually  pronounced  the  principal  Sacraments. 
The  highest  rank  in  the  catalogue  is  assigned  by  Aquinas  to 
the  Eucharist.  He  undertakes  to  point  out  the  necessity  of  the 
seven  Sacraments,  and  their  connection  with  one  another.2  In 
Baptism  is  the  birth  to  spiritual  life ;  advance  to  mature  strength 
is  through  Confirmation ;  the  nourishing  of  this  inward  life  is 
through  the  Eucharist.  Were  man  sound  in  body  and  soul,  free 
from  sin  and  evil,  these  three  Sacraments  would  suffice.  But  for 
the  cure  of  his  maladies,  he  needs  Penance  and  Extreme  Unction. 
Moreover,  a  spiritual  consecration  in  reference  to  this  life  is 
requisite,  which,  as  regards  clerical  duty,  is  imparted  by  ordina¬ 
tion,  and,  as  regards  the  preservation  of  offspring,  by  marriage. 
Of  the  Sacraments  there  are  three  which  are  not  to  be  repeated. 
These  are  Baptism,  Confirmation,  and  Orders.  They  stamp  upon 
the  soul  a  certain  “  indelible  character,”  but  the  precise  nature  of 
this  effect  of  grace  it  was  found  to  be  not  easy  to  make  clear. 
Such  an  effect  is  said  by  Duns  Scotus  not  to  be  ascribed  to  them 
in  Scripture,  nor  by  the  Fathers,  but  to  be  established  on  the 
authority  of  the  Roman  Church.  Durandus  calls  in  question  the 
fact  of  such  an  internal  character  being  imprinted.  But  the  doc¬ 
trine  of  Aquinas  prevailed. 

The  transcendant  importance  of  the  Sacraments  in  the  Scho¬ 
lastic  system  is  realized  when  we  are  told  by  Aquinas  that  it  is  by 
them,  through  the  hierarchy  who  administer  them,  that  we  are  made 
the  recipients  of  that  grace  which  renders  us  participants  of  the 
divine  nature.  At  the  root  of  his  philosophy  in  its  bearing  on  the 
subject  is  the  idea  of  the  mystical  unity  of  the  Church  in  one  body, 
having  Christ  for  its  head.  In  some  way  —  it  is  not  explained  ex¬ 
actly  how  —  through  the  Sacraments  the  benefits  of  the  passion  of 
Christ  are  applied  to  men.3  The  effect  of  the  Sacrament  is  ex 

1  For  details  as  to  the  question  of  the  number,  see  Schwane,  p.  584  sq. 

2  P.  III.  qu.  65,  art.  1.  See,  also,  P.  III.  62,  5,  where  Baptism  and  the 
Lord’s  Supper  are  said  to  be  “  potissima  sacramenta.” 

3  The  varieties  of  opinion  are  clearly  set  forth  by  Schwane,  p.  592  sq. 


256 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


opere  operato }  That  is  to  say,  it  is  not  dependent  on  the  personal 
character  of  the  officiating  priest.  All  that  is  requisite  on  his  part 
is  the  intention  —  the  intention  to  carry  out  the  purpose  of  Christ 
and  the  Church  as  regards  the  Sacrament  which  he  administers. 
What  is  required  of  the  recipient  in  order  to  get  the  benefit  implied 
in  the  Sacrament  is  a  question  of  vital  moment.  The  Sacrament 
was  held  to  be  not  dependent  for  its  efficacious  power  upon  the 
exercise  of  faith  on  his  part.  This  is  a  distinction  between  the 
Sacraments  of  the  Old  Covenant  and  the  New.  Aquinas  reiterates 
the  statement  of  Augustine  that  where  there  is  no  faith  the  bless¬ 
ing  veiled  in  the  Sacrament  is  not  received.  But  the  subjective 
qualification  was  gradually  reduced  to  a  minimum.  It  was  made 
to  consist,  provided  one  is  not  in  the  state  of  mortal  sin,  merely 
in  the  mental  posture  of  non-resistance  to  the  operation  of  the 
Sacramental  act,  although  its  effect  might  be  enhanced  by  a  pious 
disposition.  So  far  was  the  theory  of  a  quasi  magical  operation 
of  the  Sacrament  extended.  Among  the  later  Schoolmen,  from 
Scotus  onward,  in  connection  with  the  Sacraments  of  Penance  and 
Extreme  Unction,  a  certain  low  measure  of  subjective  qualification, 
to  which  there  was  attributed  a  merit  of  congruity,  was  made  the 
sole  prerequisite  for  the  attainment  of  the  full  benefit. 

1.  The  form  of  Baptism  is  the  use  of  the  words  used  in  the 
institution  of  the  rice.1 2  Its  effect  is  sanctification  and  forgiveness, 
— that  is,  Justification,  which  is  received  by  the  infant  as  well  as  by 
the  adult.  The  general  opinion  was  that  concupiscence  as  a  prin¬ 
ciple  is  not  destroyed  but  weakened  so  that  it  does  not  longer  reign 
without  our  consent.3  In  this  opinion  Aquinas  substantially  concurs 
with  Peter  Lombard.  (The  sense  in  which  “  regeneration  ”  was 
predicated  of  the  subject  of  Baptism  was  not  clearly  explained. 
There  are  no  exceptions  to  the  necessity  of  Baptism,  save  in  the 
case  of  martyrs  and  where  the  intention  to  receive  the  rite  exists, 
but  is  prevented  from  being  fulfilled  without  fault  on  the  part  of 
the  subject.  The  faith  of  sponsors  is  in  lieu  of  the  faith  of  children. 

2.  Confirmation  in  the  Latin  Church  could  be  imparted  only 
by  the  Bishops,  since  it  was  held  that  they  alone  may  anoint  with 
holy-oil,  and  chrism  being  the  matter  of  the  Sacrament.  It  confers 

1  Aquinas,  Sentent.  iv.  distinct,  iii.  qu.  64,  art.  8. 

2  The  questions  relative  to  the  form  are  most  fully  considered  by  Alexander 
of  Hales.  See  Schwane,  p.  606. 

3  Sum.  Theol.  P.  II.  i.  qu.  81,  art.  3. 


MEDIAEVAL  THEOLOGY 


257 


strength  for  growth  in  the  divine  life.  Witnesses  are  necessary  by 
whom,  as  Aquinas  teaches,  the  candidate,  being,  “  as  it  were, 
heretofore,  weak  and  a  child,”  is  sustained.  A  spiritual  relation¬ 
ship  is  established  between  them  and  the  candidate  —  as  between 
the  baptized  person  and  the  sponsors  —  which  precludes  inter¬ 
marriage. 

3.  The  Eucharist  was  not,  like  Baptism,  held  to  be  indispensa¬ 
ble  to  salvation.  It  sufficed  to  have  the  desire  and  the  intention 
to  receive  it,  but  the  fulfilment  of  the  purpose  must  not  be  wil¬ 
fully  neglected.  In  the  twelfth  century,  the  custom  of  admitting 
children  to  the  communion  was  abolished,  the  primary  motive 
being  the  increased  veneration  for  the  elements,  and  the  danger 
of  dropping  the  bread  and  wine  in  the  distribution  of  them.  The 
same  motive  led,  at  the  outset,  to  the  withholding  of  the  cup  from 
the  laity.  Alexander  of  Hales  is  the  first  to  speak  of  this  custom 
as  common  in  the  Church.  Albert  the  Great  was  opposed  to  it. 

It  was  advocated  by  Bonaventura  and  Aquinas.  By  the  latter  the 
doctrine  of  concomitance  was  brought  forward,  —  the  doctrine 
that  in  virtue  of  a  natural  accompaniment,  the  blood  of  Christ  is 
in  the  consecrated  bread.1  It  is  enough  that  the  priest  alone  re¬ 
ceives  the  cup.  This  view  was  taken  up  by  both  of  the  great 
orders,  and  prevailed.  It  added  a  new  dignity  to  the  priesthood. 

The  term  ‘  transubstantiation  ’  first  received  an  authoritative  / 
sanction  at  the  fourth  Lateran  Council,  under  Innocent  III.,  in  y 
1215.  In  the  act  of  transubstantiation,  it  was  the  doctrine  that  I 
the  whole  Christ  is  in  every  part  of  the  elements.  There  was  an  I 
abundance  of  subtle  speculation  in  the  effort  to  show  that  while 
these  occupy  space,  their  parts,  through  the  exercise  of  divine 
power,  do  not.  The  miracle  was  asserted  by  Aquinas  to  be,  not 
an  annihilation  of  the  substance  of  the  elements,  but  a  conversion 
of  it  into  the  substance  of  the  Lord.2  The  doctrine  of  Peter  Lom¬ 
bard  was  accepted,  that  through  an  exercise  of  omnipotence,  the 
accidents  —  the  attributes — of  the  elements  are  kept  in  being 
when  their  substance  is  gone  from  them.'3  But  Scotus.held  that 
the  substance  of  the  elements  is  annihilated.  By  Occam  there  was 
brought  forward  a  doctrine  of  impanation  or  consubstantiality, 
which  had  a  resemblance  to  the  later  Lutheran  conception.  After 
the  eleventh  century,  an  earlier  Greek  custom  of  elevating  the 

1  Sum.  Theol.  P.  III.  qu.  76,  art.  2.  2  Ibid.  III.  qu.  75,  art.  3. 

3  Ibid.  qu.  77,  art.  I. 


S 


258 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


host,  originally  a  merely  symbolical  act,  spread  among  the  Latins. 
Attended  by  the  ringing  of  a  bell,  it  came  to  be  the  sign  to  the 
people  of  the  simultaneous  occurrence  of  the  miracle,  and  the 
signal  for  them  to  fall  on  their  knees.  A  festival  of  the  adoration 
of  the  host,  which  was  introduced  in  1259,  was  ordained  for  the 
whole  Church  by  Urban  IV.,  in  1264.  After  debate  it  was  decided, 
in  accordance  with  the  teaching  of  Aquinas,  that  the  transubstan¬ 
tiated  elements  continue  to  be  such,  even  if  a  mouse  may  chance 
to  eat  of  the  converted  bread.  The  doctrine  was  inherited  from 
the  former  period  that  the  mass  is  a  real  offering,  renewing  and 
repeating  the  sacrifice  of  Christ  on  the  cross,  and  giving  peculiar 
efficacy  to  the  prayers  for  the  living  and  for  the  dead  which  were 
offered  up  in  connection  with  it.  The  efficacy  in  averting  evils 
and  procuring  blessings  that  was  supposed  to  inhere  in  masses, 
led  to  a  common  practice  of  private  masses,  the  priest  alone  being 
present.  At  the  same  time,  as  it  was  only  venial  sins  that  obtained 
pardon  through  this  Sacrament,  the  reception  of  it  came  to  have 
a  diminished  importance  in  the  eyes  of  the  generality  of  people. 
This  prompted  Innocent  III.,  in  1215,  to  ordain  that  every  layman 
should  confess  and  partake  of  the  communion  at  least  once  in  the 
year.  Penance  —  the  Sacrament  of  Confession  and  Absolution  — 
from  the  benefits  attainable  through  it,  assumed  in  the  popular 
mind  the  highest  importance.  But  among  the  Mystics,  in  the 
cloisters,  frequent  communion  was  prized  as  the  means  of  spiritual 
union  with  the  Lord. 

4.  In  respect  to  Penance  there  took  place  in  the  Middle  Ages  the 
most  important  changes  in  doctrine  and  practice.  As  early  as  the 
eighth  and  ninth  centuries,  absolution  began  to  be  pronounced  in 
anticipation  of  the  satisfaction  or  temporal  penalties  to  follow  upon 
repentance  and  confession.  For  a  long  period  the  form  of  absolu¬ 
tion  was  deprecatory.  It  was  a  prayer  for  the  forgiveness  of  the 
penitent.  The  three  elements  in  the  Sacrament  were  the  contri¬ 
tion  of  the  heart,  the  confession  of  the  mouth,  and  satisfaction  by 
the  offender  —  satis/ actio  operis .  But  as  late  as  the  twelfth  cen¬ 
tury,  confession  to  a  priest  was  not  generally  considered  indispen¬ 
sable  to  the  obtaining  of  forgiveness,  and  if  a  priest  was  not  at 
hand  confession  might  be  made  to  a  layman.  In  the  thirteenth 
century  the  doctrine  assumed  the  definite  form  that  while  mortal 
sins  committed  after  baptism  incur  the  penalty  of  eternal  death, 
by  repentance  and  confession  this  is  commuted  into  temporal  pen- 


MEDIyEVAL  theology 


259 


alties,  or  satisfaction,  to  be  adjudged  by  the  priest.  These  penal¬ 
ties  are  both  vindicative  and  medicinal.  The  priest  pronounces 
absolution  in  the  character  of  a  judge  administering  the  divine 
law.  This  is  the  power  of  the  keys.  Thereafter  the  priest  speaks 
in  the  first  person  :  11  Ego  absolvf  te .”  To  confess  at  least  once  a  ^ 
year  was  made  a  law  by  Innocent  III.1  If  there  are  no  mortal 
sins  to  confess,  Aquinas  holds  that  there  must  be  a  confession  of 
venial  sins,  an  opinion  from  which  Scotus  dissented.  With  the 
crusades  there  was  introduced  the  practice  of  granting  plenary 
indulgences.  As  a  basis  for  the  4qctrine  of  indulgences,  or  the 
remission  of  temporal  penalties  imposed  in  connection  with  abso¬ 
lution,  Alexander  of  Hales  and  Albert  the  Great  brought  forward 
the  doctrine  of  the  treasury  of  supererogatory  merits,  amassed  by 
Christ  and  the  Saints,  —  merits  which  may  be  set  to  the  account 
of  the  needy,  to  discharge  the  debt  of  satisfaction  due  from  them. 
Aquinas  endeavors  to  show  the  reasonableness  of  this  idea  on  the 
ground  of  the  mystical  union,  binding  the  Church  together  and  to 
its  head.  It  is  committed  to  the  Pope,  and  to  those  to  whom  he 
may  delegate  his  prerogative,  to  dispense  these  merits  by  which 
temporal  penalties  are  cancelled.2 

This  power  of  the  Church  through  the  Pope  extends  —  “  in¬ 
directly,”  says  Aquinas  —  to  Purgatory.  This  was  one  of  the 
five  abodes  in  the  invisible  world.  These  are  :  1.  H&U,  a  place 
of  eternal  suffering,  the  abode  of  those  who  die  in  mortal  sin, 
without  absolution.  The  Schoolmen  unite  in  affirming  torment  by 
eternal  fire.  2.  The  limbus  of  infants  dying  unbaptized  —  limbus 
signifying  literally  a  border,  as,  for  instance,  the  bank  of  a  river. 

In  this  abode  the  inmates  are  cut  off  from  the  vision  of  God, 
but,  it  was  generally  held,  are  not  subject  to  positive  inflic¬ 
tions  of  pain.  3.  The  limbus  patrum  —  the  abode  of  the  Old 
Testament  Saints,  now,  since  the  advent  of  Christ,  turned  into 
a  place  of  rest.  4.  Purgatory,  for  souls  not  under  condemna¬ 
tion  for  mortal  sin,  yet  doomed  to  temporal,  terminable  punish¬ 
ments.  These  served  the  double  purpose  of  an  atonement  and 
of  a  means  of  purification.  5.  Heaven,  the  abode  of  the  souls 

1  Lateran  Council  IV.  c.  21. 

2  This  power  of  the  Pope  is  exercised,  as  far  as  release  from  Purgatory  is 
concerned,  not  per  modum  judicn ,  but  per  rtiodwn  suffragii,  i.e.,  through 
supplication  to  God.  It  is  connected  with  the  Pope  s  inlallibility  by  Albert 
and  Aquinas.  See  Schwane,  pp.  674,  54S,  543. 


26o 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


which  at  death  need  no  purification  and  of  souls  cleansed  in 
the  fires  of  Purgatory.  Dante,  as  to  his  theology,  was  a  disciple 
of  Thomas  Aquinas,  and  his  description  of  these  several  regions 
is  in  the  spirit  of  the  orthodox  doctrine. 

The  extension  of  the  benefit  of  indulgences  into  the  domain  of 
Purgatory  for  the  sake  of  abridging  the  duration  of  its  pains  was 
one  of  the  baleful  innovations  in  connection  with  the  Sacrament 
of  Penance.  Another  modification,  equally,  if  not  more  mis¬ 
chievous  in  its  practical  effects,  was  the  reduction  of  the  “  con¬ 
trition,”  the  first  condition  for  the  obtaining  of  absolution,  to 
a  lower  form  of  repentance.  This  doctrine  was  introduced  by 
Alexander  of  Hales 1  and  Bonaventura,  who  taught  that  “  attri¬ 
tion,”  the  “  servile  fear  ”  of  one  who  deplores  sin  from  the  dread 
of  hell,  is  a  sufficient  preparation  to  receive  the  Sacrament,  which 
operates  to  make  good  the  deficiency.  This  doctrine  does  not 
gain  a  place  in  the  teaching  of  Aquinas,  but  it  is  prominent  in  the 
theology  of  Scotus,  who  goes  so  far  as  to  ascribe  to  this  attrition 
a  merit  of  congruity.  It  is  a  disposition  of  heart  whereby  the 
sinner  merits  the  grace  of  the  Sacrament,  by  which  the  work  thus 
begun  attains  to  completion. 

5.  After  the  ninth  century,  the  ancient  custom  of_jmy>inting 
the  sick  —  which  rested  on  James  v.  14  (and  Mark  vi.  13)  — was 
,  lifted  to  the  rank  of  a  Sacrament.  Thomas  Aquinas,  differing 
from  the  Schoolmen  before  him,  taught  that  it  was  instituted,  not 
by  the  Apostles,  but  by  Christ  himself.2  Scotus  adopted  this 
opinion,  which  was  sanctioned  by  the  Council  of  Trent.  .  The 
spiritual  effect  came  to  be  regarded  as  the  chief  benefit.  The 
physical  advantage  was  secondary.  It  was  to  be  applied,  not  to 
the  sick  generally  as  of  old,  but  only  to  those  whose  lives  were  in 
peril.  Its  matter,  as  Aquinas  explains,  is  the  “  oil  blessed  by  the 
bishop.”  It  was  to  be  put  upon  the  eyes,  the  ears,  the  nostrils,  the 
lips,  the  hands,  the  feet,  the  thighs.  The  minister  of  the  Sacra¬ 
ment  is  the  priest,  the  effect  is  the  “  healing  of  the  mind  ”  and,  it 
might  be,  of  the  body  also.  It  is  only  venial  sins  that  are  remitted 
in  this  Sacrament.  The  remainders  of  sin  are  cleansed  away.  The 
soul  is  strengthened  for  the  struggle  of  death.  There  is  a  marked 
I  indefiniteness  in  the  descriptions  of  Extreme  Unction,  and  of 
its  relation  to  the  two  great  Sacraments  of  the  Eucharist  and 

1  Sum.  TJieol.  P.  III.  qu.  60,  art.  3.  See  Schwane,  p.  666. 

2  Suppl.  qu.  29,  art.  3. 


MEDIAEVAL  THEOLOGY 


26l 


Penance.  If  the  patient  partially  recovers,  Unction  may  be  re¬ 
peated,  provided  there  is  a  relapse  and  renewal  of  danger. 

6.  The  number  of  orders,  according  to  Aquinas,  is  seven,  j 
Since  the  thirteenth  century,  all  orders  except  bishops,  priests, 
and  deacons  have  been  termed  “  minor  orders.”  Ordination 
communicates  to  the  priesthood  sacerdotal  authority  and  the 
grace  for  the  exercise  of  it.  The  priest  is  thus  empowered 
and  qualified  to  dispense  the  Sacraments.  It  leaves  an  indeli¬ 
ble  character,  and  therefore  is  not  to  be  repeated.  What  the 
matter  of  this  Sacrament  is,  it  was  not  found  easy  to  determine. 
Aquinas  confesses  that  while  the  efficacy  of  the  other  Sacra¬ 
ments  resides  in  the  matter,  here  it  rests  in  the  person  of  the 
administrator  and  from  him  passes  to  the  person  to  be 
ordained.  The  outward  acts  are  the  blessing,  the  laying-on  of 
hands,  and  the  anointing.  The  minister  of  ordination  is  the  $ 
bishop.  The  question  whether  ordination  by  heretical  bishops  is 
valid  or  not,  was  answered  in  the  negative  by  Peter  Lombard. 
Aquinas  teaches  that  the  Sacrament  in  such  a  case  is  not  ineffica¬ 
cious,  but  fails  to  confer  grace  on  account  of  the  sin  of  receiving 
ordination  against  the  prohibition  of  the  Church.  As  to  the 
relation  of  priests  to  bishops,  it  was  the  view  of  Aquinas,  which 
became  prevalent,  that  they  are  of  the  same  order,  and  differ  only 
in  office.  But  the  attempt  was  made  to  vindicate  for  bishops  a 
right  of  jurisdiction,  a  superiority  of  office,  through  the  appoint¬ 
ment  of  Christ.  Scotus  favored  the  view  that  the  consecration 
of  bishops  is  a  special  Sacrament.1 

7.  Marriage  was  pronounced  a  Sacrament.  Yet  it  was  a  Sacra¬ 
ment  of  which  The' priest  was  deprived,  and  the  unmarried  state 
was  regarded  as  higher  than  the  married.  To  point  out  the 
sacramental  virtue  of  such  a  rite  was  attended  with  no  small  diffi¬ 
culty.  Aquinas  taught  that  it  received  the  character  of  a  Sacra¬ 
ment  from  Christ,  since  it  became  the  symbol  of  His  relation  to 
the  Church  (Eph.  v.  32),  and  by  Aquinas  its  indissoluble  character 
was  reaffirmed.  He  taught  that  the  form  of  the  Sacrament  is 
the  consent  of  the  persons  entering  into  the  marriage  relation. 
The  contracting  parties  are  the  ministers  of  the  Sacrament ;  yet 
Aquinas  makes  the  benediction  of  the  priest  to  be  “  something 
sacramental,”  although  not  the  Sacrament  itself.2  By  many,  fol- 

1  For  the  passages,  see  Schwane,  pp.  679,  680. 

2  Aquinas,  Suppl.  qu.  42,  art.  1,  qu.  45,  art.  1,  2.  Schwane,  p.  688. 


262 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


lowing  Augustine,  a  benefit  of  the  Sacrament  since  the  fall  is  the 
check  imparted  to  carnal  appetite.1  The  common  view  was  that 
there  is  likewise  imparted  a  positive  gift  of  grace,  having  refer¬ 
ence  to  the  procreation  and  training  of  children,  and  the  mutual 
fellowship  of  man  and  wife. 

The  great  Schoolmen,  and  foremost  among  them,  Thomas  Aqui¬ 
nas,  undertook  the  herculean  task  of  harmonizing  the  existing  opin¬ 
ions  and  practices  of  the  Church  with  the  teaching  of  Augustine. 
They  virtually  attempted  —  and  here  Aquinas  is  the  principal  figure 
—  to  take  up  Aristotle  into  the  company  of  the  Apostles,  and  to 
establish  a  concord  in  the  circle  thus  constituted.  The  task  was 
an  impossible  one.  As  to  the  problems  just  stated,  certainly  as 
to  the  first  of  them,  Aquinas  was  the  nearest  to  success,  for  he 
kept  nearer  to  the  teaching  of  the  prince  of  the  Latin  Fathers. 
Augustine  inconsistently  admitted  “  merits  ”  into  his  system,  calling 
them,  however,  gifts  of  God.  The  determinism  of  Aquinas,  his 
doctrine  of  the  sole  efficiency  of  prevenient  grace  and  of  the  grace 
which  confers  perseverance,  are  Augustinian  elements.  But  an 
ambiguity,  to  say  the  least,  cleaved  to  the  theory  of  cooperative 
grace,  and  to  the  description  of  the  kinds  and  degrees  of  merit 
which  pertain  to  the  several  types  and  stages  of  regenerated  char¬ 
acter.  By  Scotus,  the  Augustinian  point  of  view  was  really  super¬ 
seded  by  the  Semi-Pelagian.  The  system  took  on  an  ethical 
character.  But  the  nominalistic  philosophy  and  the  acknowledged 
impossibility  of  explaining  rationally  the  articles  of  faith  compelled 
theology  to  fall  back  on  the  will  of  God  as  the  ground,  and  mirac¬ 
ulous  revelation  as  the  only  verification,  of  the  realities  of  re¬ 
demption  as  interpreted  by  the  Church.  This  tendency  culminated 
in  Occam,  by  whom,  concerning  the  gravity  of  the  first  sin  —  which 
seemed  to  be  less  than  it  was  revealed  to  be  —  concerning  the 
Eucharist,  and  so  concerning  other  articles  of  faith,  what  seemed 
to  be  rational  views  were  set  in  contrast  with  the  authoritative 
teaching  of  the  Church,  a  teaching,  nevertheless,  which  Occam 
sincerely  accepted.  So  far  as  practical  religion  is  concerned,  it 
cannot  be  questioned  that  the  widespread  influence  of  the  nomi¬ 
nalistic  theology,  with  its  lower  conception  of  the  need  of  grace 
and  its  exaggeration  of  the  efficacy  of  the  Sacrament  of  Penance, 
had  a  demoralizing  effect  upon  the  popular  mind. 

1  Suppl.  qu.  42,  art.  2. 


CHAPTER  IX 


THE  CATHARISTS - THE  WALDENSIANS - THE  MYSTICS  —  WESEL  ;  WES- 

SEL  ;  SAVONAROLA  —  THE  DOCTRINES  OF  WYCLIF  —  HUSS  —  THE 
RENAISSANCE  AND  ITS  INFLUENCE - ERASMUS 

A  valuable  book  by  Ullman  bears  the  title,  “  Reformers  before 
the  Reformation,”  —  a  title  which,  as  Ritschl  has  pointed  out,  is 
somewhat  misleading.  It  is  true,  not  of  all,  but  of  most  of  the 
movements  and  persons  described  in  this  work,  that  they  did  not 
overstep  the  pale  of  Catholic  doctrine,  or  break  away  from  admis¬ 
sible  and  sanctioned  types  of  Catholic  piety.  The  Catharists  in 
the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries,  of  whom  the  Albigenses  were 
a  branch,  revolted  against  the  hierarchy  and  mingled  in  their 
opinions  a  dualism  which  was  caught  up  from  Eastern  sects  whose 
influence  spread  into  the  West.  They  were  in  general  loosely 
and  incorrectly  styled  Manichmans.  The  Catharists  have  no  place, 
except  as  a  striking  phenomenon,  in  the  history  of  doctrine.  Even 
the  Waldensians,  in  their  attachment  to  the  Scriptures  and  in 
their  interest  in  engaging  the  laity  in  the  work  of  preaching,  were 
chargeable  with  no  heresy.1  They  accepted  the  Sacraments  of  the 
Church.  In  their  ideal  of  poverty  they  were  far  from  standing 
alone.  In  this  particular  and  in  their  evangelistic  labors  they 
anticipated  the  Franciscans.  The  Waldensians  sought  for  the 
recognition  of  the  Church  and  the  Pope.  It  is  true,  however, 
that  they  discarded  the  doctrine  of  Purgatory  and  of  Indulgences. 
And  the  Waldenses  of  Lombardy,  when  the  persecution  of  them 
set  in,  went  farther,  rejecting  the  worship  of  images,  of  saints,  and 
of  Mary.  But  in  respect  to  the  method  of  salvation,  the  Wal- 

1  For  the  true  history  of  the  early  Waldenses,  see  the  works  of  Dieckhoff 
and  Herzog,  Muller,  Die  IValdenser  u.  ihre  einzel.  Gruppen  bis  z.  14  ten. 
Jahr.  (1886),  and  Comba,  Hist.  d.  Vaudois  cT  dial.  (1887),  and  his  art.  IVal¬ 
denser  ( Real-Encycl .  XVI.  610  sq.  See,  also,  Harnack,  DG.  III.  366 sq.). 

263 


264 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


denses,  generally  speaking,  did  not  forsake  the  accredited  theology 
in  any  essential  particulars.  They  had  no  perceptible  influence 
in  giving  rise  to  the  Protestant  movement.  The  Gallican  leaders 
who  were  so  conspicuous  in  the  Reforming  Councils  of  the  fifteenth 
century,  contended  for  the  supreme  authority  of  the  collective 
Episcopate,  and  this  was  affirmed  at  Constance.  A  General 
Council  they  held,  as  far  as  it  represents  the  universal  Church, 
is  infallible.  But  they  were  outdone  by  none  in  their  zeal  for 
Church  authority,  they  were  unshaken  in  their  faith  in  a  media¬ 
torial  priesthood,  and  they  clung  to  the  Catholic  dogmatic  system. 

The  Mystics  of  the  fourteenth  century  and  their  disciples, 
especially  the  German  school  of  Mystics,  did  pave  the  way  for 
the  Reformation  by  inculcating,  by  precept  and  example,  the 
inwardness  of  true  religion,  and  by  making  the  value  of  the 
doctrines  to  consist  in  their  relation  to  practical  piety.  Among 
the  most  eminent  of  the  later  Mystics  arel  Master  Eckart,  \Henry 
Suso,  John  Tauler,  Ruysbroek,  Thomas  a  Kempis,  and  the  anony¬ 
mous  author  of  the  little  work  which  Luther  prized  so  highly, 
The  German  Theology.  It  is  a  mistake  to  think  that  the 
Mystics  intended  to  depart,  or  that  any  of  them  in  a  marked 
degree  did  depart,  from  Catholic  teaching  or  from  approved  types 
of  Catholic  piety.  Most  of  them  were  Dominicans,  imbued  with 
deep  respect  for  the  writings  of  Thomas  Aquinas,  and  developing 
their  theological  statements  from  portions  of  his  teaching.  Some 
of  them,  it  is  true,  especially  Master  Eckart,  propounded  specu¬ 
lations  on  the  being  of  God  and  His  relation  to  the  soul,  which, 
literally  taken,  are  Pantheistic,  and  called  out  censure.  But  in 
this  procedure  they  were  pressing  with  emphasis  a  conception 
of  God,  the  basis  of  which  was  in  Augustine  and  Aquinas,  and  in 
the  Areopagite.  Eckart  in  his  deep,  practical  convictions  was  a 
theist.  The  Mystics  did  not  undervalue  an  active  life  of  duty, 
a  life  of  faithful  labor  in  one’s  vocation.  Along  with  it  they 
placed  the  contemplative  life,  the  blissful  communion  with  God, 
as  the  supreme  object  of  aspiration.  The  path  to  this  experience 
was  through  purification,  inward  illumination,  and  union  to  God. 
By  these  means  the  veil  is  withdrawn  from  the  eyes  and  one  be¬ 
comes  a  new  creature.  As  Suso  explains  the  steps  of  this  experi¬ 
ence,  one  must  emancipate  himself  from  love  to  created  things 
and  from  the  hope  of  peace  through  them.  In  accomplishing 
this,  the  Sacraments  —  the  Lord’s  Supper  and  Penance  —  are  an 


MEDIAEVAL  THEOLOGY 


265 


essential  aid,  and,  with  these,  absorbing  reflection  upon  the  love 
of  God  to  sinners.  Then  follows  the  partaking  of  Christ  by 
the  sympathetic  contemplation  of  His  sufferings.  Their  atoning 
efficacy  by  which  we  are  delivered  from  wrath  is  recognized, 
but  the  stress  is  laid  on  the  love  therein  manifested,  and  on  the 
Lord’s  example  of  purity  and  patience.  The  cross  is  to  be  taken 
up  and  self-seeking  eradicated.  Lastly,  there  is  “the  birth  of 
God  ”  in  the  soul,  and  the  entering  of  the  divine  being  into  the 
inmost  depths  of  the  spirit.  The  soul  comes  into  an  ineffable 
union  with  Him.  The  language  of  Suso  is  Pantheistic,  but  this 
is  not  its  real  intent.  God  and  man  are  still  held  to  be  essen¬ 
tially  distinct.  The  mystical  piety  had  in  Germany  numerous 
circles  of  votaries.  It  did  not  carry  with  it  a  departure  from 
the  Catholic  idea  of  grace  and  of  faith.  Yet  not  by  faith,  but 
by  love  and  adoring  self-renunciation,  comes  salvation.  Regen¬ 
eration,  not  justification,  was  the  engrossing  idea. 

There  were  individuals  who  are  often  counted  as  forerunners 
of  Luther,  and  who  gave  utterance  to  evangelical  thoughts,  but 
who,  nevertheless,  did  not,  at  least  consistently,  teach  a  doctrine 
wholly  at  variance  with  Catholic  precedents.  Such  are  Wesel 
and  Wessel,  who  attacked  abuses  connected  with  indulgences. 
But  the  same  thing  was  done  by  many,  and  the  blows  of  these 
teachers  were  not  aimed  at  the  root  of  the  tree.  When  they 
dwelt  on  the  Church  as  a  spiritual  body,  they  could  quote  in 
behalf  of  their  fundamental  idea  Augustine  and  Aquinas ;  yet 
they  used  expressions  which  broke  through  the  restrictions  of 
Scholastic  theology  and  the  claims  of  the  rulers  of  the  Church 
to  a  divinely  given  jurisdiction.  Savonarola  was  a  preacher  of 
righteousness  and  an  assailant  of  ecclesiastical  corruption.  His 
tract,  written  in  prison,  on  the  fifty-first  Psalm,  spoke  of  justifi¬ 
cation  in  a  strain  that  called  forth  an  encomium  from  Luther. 
Yet  the  Florentine  Reformer  was  a  Thomist  in  his  theology. 

It  was^Wy dif|w h o  carried  his  warfare,  which  began  in  opposition 
to  offensive  'practices  in  the  Church,  to  the  length  of  an  explicit 
antagonism  to  important  articles  in  its  creed.  In  this  course,  he 
was  followed,  but  with  slower  steps,  by  his  more  conservative 
disciple,  John  Huss.  Wyclif  was  a  Realist  and  an  Augustinian,  | 
and  followed  Bradwardine  in  the  advocacy  of  determinism.  In 
the  earlier  portion  of  his  career,  or  prior  to  1366,  it  is  true  that  , 
he  strongly  asserted  the  normal  authority  of  Scripture,  and  de-  | 


266 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


fined  thejClmrch  as  consisting  of  the  body  of  the  elect ;  but  for 
these  statements  he  could  cite  Augustine,  and  he  did  not  pro¬ 
pound  negative  inferences  destructive  of  the  deference  paid  to 
tradition  and  to  the  hierarchy.  Even  after  he  fairly  engaged  in 
the  struggle  in  behalf  of  the  rights  of  the  civil  power,  and  against 
hierarchical  domination,  he  had  no  quarrel  with  the  Franciscan 
type  of  piety,  and  spoke  approvingly  of  St.  Francis  and  his  order. 
He  declared  excommunication,  even  when  pronounced  by  the 
Pope,  not  to  be  necessarily  valid  or  harmful.  After  1377,  and 
during  the  Papal  Schism,  he  sharpened  his  weapons  and  advanced 
in  his  opinions  so  far  as  to  express  doubts  as  to  the  doctrine  of 
transubstantiation.  After  his  theses  on  this  subject  were  con¬ 
demned  at  Oxford,  his  dissent  from  Roman  tenets  became  more 
’  definite  and  extended.  He  affirmed  that  the  Roman  Church 
I  might  err  in  doctrine.  He  distinctly  rejected  transubstantiation, 
and  presented  a  view  of  the  Eucharist  not  dissimilar  from  that  of 
Augustine.  In  his  last  and  principal  work,  the  Trialogus ,  his  re¬ 
formatory  views  pertaining  both  to  doctrines  and  rites  are  fully 
exhibited  in  their  mature  form.1  Papal  decrees  are  asserted  to 
have  no  validity  except  so  far  as  they  rest  on  Scripture.  He 
opposes  transubstantiation,  ascribing  the  acceptance  of  it  to  the 
substitution  of  faith  in  Papal  decisions  for  faith  in  the  Scriptures. 
He  asserts  that  meddling  with  civil  affairs  should  be  interdicted 

!to  the  clergy.  It  is  doubtful  whether  there  is  a  Scriptural  founda¬ 
tion  for  Confirmation.  There  is  no  necessity  for  auricular  con¬ 
fession,  and  no  Scriptural  authority  for  Extreme  Unction,  or  for 
Unction  in  connection  with  baptism  and  confirmation.  There  is 
no  ground  for  the  multiplied  ranks  of  the  clergy,  —  popes,  cardi¬ 
nals,  patriarchs,  monks,  canons,  etc.  The  doctrine  of  indulgences 
and  of  supererogatory  merits  is  discarded.  Begging,  as  practised 
by  the  mendicant  monks,  is  not  a  Christian  virtue.  Included 
in  the  rites  and  practices  which  are  condemned  by  Wyclif  are 
Church  music,  Church  asylums  for  criminals,  canonization,  pil¬ 
grimages,  celibacy  of  the  clergy,  etc.  In  the  light  of  such  state¬ 
ments,  one  might  be  led  to  consider  him  not  only  a  Protestant, 
but  even  a  Protestant  of  the  Puritan  type.  Nevertheless,  his 
conception  of  faith  and  of  its  part  in  the  process  of  Justification 
was  essentially  Catholic,  and  the  same  is  the  fact  respecting  his 
radical  view  of  the  office  and  operation  of  the  Sacraments.  Huss 

1  For  copious  extracts,  see  Giesaler,  Kirchengesch.  III.  iv.  i.  8  n.  21. 


MEDIAEVAL  THEOLOGY 


267 

was  strongly  influenced  by  the  teachings  of  Wyclif,  but  he  was  not 
led  to  renounce  the  doctrine  of  transubstantiation,  while  he  insisted 
that  the  cup  should  be  given  to  the  laity.  The  later  Bohemian 
brethren  were  moved  by  the  intervening  conflicts  to  depart  more 
widely  from  the  traditional  creed,  and  were  prepared  to  receive 
with  sympathy  the  doctrine  of  Luther. 

The  development  of  the  new  languages  and  the  rise  of  a 
national  literature  in  the  European  countries  were  early  signs 
of  a  weakening  of  the  control  of  medisevalism.  Many  of  the 
writings  which  appeared  in  Italy,  France,  Germany,  and  England 
in  the  vernacular  tongues,  chastised  the  vices  of  the  clergy  and 
the  corruptions  of  the  Church.  But  in  such  writings  as  the 
Vision  of  Piers  Ploughman  by  Longland,  the  poems  of  Chaucer, 
the  works  of  Dante,  Petrarch,  and  Boccaccio,  there  was  no 
thought  of  a  crusade  against  the  principle  of  sacerdotal  authority 
or  the  spiritual  supremacy  of  the  Popes. 

From  the  Revival  of  Learning  —  from  that  new  culture  and 
intellectual  tone  which  are  designated  as  Humanism  —  there  went 
forth  a  mighty  influence  which  was  felt  within  the  sphere  of 
theological  doctrine.  The  centre  of  this  movement  was  Italy. 
Dante  had  found  the  voice  of  Virgil  hoarse  from  long  disuse,  but 
the  Roman  authors,  and  after  them  the  Greek  writers,  were  more 
and  more  read  with  delight.  Petrarch  inspired  his  countrymen 
with  a  passion  for  the  classic  productions  of  antiquity.  The 
monasteries  of  the  West  were  ransacked  for  manuscripts  of  the 
ancient  poets,  philosophers,  and  orators.  Scholars  came  from 
the  East  to  Florence  and  other  cities.  Before  and  after  the  fall 
of  Constantinople,  in  1453,  the  treasures  of  Greek  learning  were 
conveyed  to  the  West.  The  new  art  of  printing  lent  its  aid  to 
the  diffusion  of  copies  of  the  ancient  authors,  together  with 
dictionaries  and  grammars,  versions  and  commentaries.  from 
Italy  the  new  light  spread  abroad  in  the  countries  north  of  the 
Alps. 

Scholasticism  lost  its  vital  power  through  the  reign  of  Nominal-  \ 
ism,  but  its  fall  was  hastened  by  the  newly  awakened  literary  1 
taste,  and  the  disdain  engendered  for  the  comparative  illiteracy,  \ 
the  wiredrawn  subtlety,  and  endless  wrangling  of  the  Scholastic 
teachers.  The  ascendency  of  the  clergy  was  diminished  in  pro¬ 
portion  as  they  ceased  to  be  exclusively  the  educated  class, 


268 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


or,  at  least,  the  sole  almoners  of  learning,  and  as  knowledge  and 
cultivation  were  diffused  among  the  laity.  The  effect  of  Human¬ 
ism  was  to  produce  in  some  cases  skepticism  and  indifference  in 
matters  of  religion,  and,  in  other  cases,  an  earnest  search  for  its 
fundamental  truths.  But  the  writings  of  the  Fathers  were  com¬ 
pared  with  their  Scholastic  interpreters  and  with  the  creed  of  the 
Church.  Better  than  all,  the  Scriptures  of  the  Old  and  New 
Testament  were  studied  in  the  original  languages.  In  the  acad¬ 
emies  of  Italy,  a  skeptical  spirit  mingled  to  a  hurtful  extent  with  a 
blind  adulation  of  antiquity.  The  Council  of  the  Lateran  (1512- 
1517)  felt  itself  called  upon  to  affirm  the  immortality  and  individ¬ 
uality  of  the  soul.  A  service  was  rendered  to  the  cause  of  truth 
by  the  exposure  of  historical  mistakes  and  of  forgeries,  as  in  the 
case  of  the  Donation  of  Constantine,  which  Laurentius  Valla 
proved  to  be  a  fiction.  In  Germany,  the  new  learning  was  culti¬ 
vated  in  a  religious  spirit.  Earnest  inquirers  examined  the  Fathers 
and  the  Scriptures  with  critical  zeal,  but  without  any  taint  of 
irreverence.  Of  these  Reuchlin,  an  untiring  but  devout  scholar, 
the  leader  of  the  foes  of  obscurantism,  was  a  typical  example.  In 
England,  Colet,  whose  expository  lectures  on  the  Epistles  of  St. 
Paul  were  listened  to  by  an  eager  throng  of  hearers,  and  Thomas 
More,  were  advocates  of  the  new  learning.  With  Colet  and  More 
there  was  associated  for  a  time  the  prince  of  the  Humanists, 
Erasmus.  The  Praise  of  Folly  was  written  at  More’s  house. 
It  can  be  said  truly  of  Erasmus  that  his  great  purpose  through 
life  was  to  deliver  the  minds  of  men  from  superstition  and  dog¬ 
matism,  and  to  bring  in  a  reign  of  culture  and  liberality,  of  a 
simpler  and  purer  Christianity.  Besides  the  blows  which  he 
struck  at  what  he  considered  “  the  Pharisaic  Kingdom  ”  by  his 
humorous  and  satirical  writings,  he  rendered  a  great  service  of  a 
positive  nature  by  his  edition  of  the  Greek  Testament,  with  a 
Latin  translation,  by  his  editions  and  translations  of  the  Fathers, 
by  his  Commentaries  and  his  treatise  on  preaching.  In  his 
writings  we  see  everywhere  the  evidences  of  the  arrival  of  the 
modern,  as  distinguished  from  the  mediaeval,  age.  He  has  been 
called  “  the  precursor  and  introducer  of  the  modern  spirit.”  But 
not  even  Erasmus  was  disposed  to  reject  any  of  the  articles  of  the 
creed  as  defined  by  the  authority  of  the  Church  or  to  disown  that 
authority.  More  lived  to  be  the  champion  and  martyr  of  the 
traditional  faith. 


PART  III 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


4 


PERIOD  IV 

THE  PRINCIPAL  TYPES  OF  PROTESTANT  THEOLOGY  — THE 
AGE  OF  POLEMICS  — THE  CRYSTALLIZING  OF  PARTIES 
AND  CREEDS 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  THEOLOGY  OF  LUTHER 

None  who  are  acquainted  with  the  history  of  Luther  need  to  be 
told  that  he  did  not  start  upon  his  career  as  a  Reformer,  either  from 
the  point  of  view  of  a  theological  critic,  or  as  an  assailant  of  the 
authority  of  the  Church  or  of  the  Pope.  His  simple  motive  was 
to  put  an  end  to  certain  practical  abuses  which,  as  he  deeply  felt, 
were  working  dire  mischief  both  to  religion  and  morality.  The 
development  of  new  theological  opinions  in  his  mind  was  closely 
connected  with  the  progress  of  his  religious  experience.  It  kept 
pace  with  his  gradual  deliverance  from  the  thraldom  of  fear  and 
the  attainment  of  freedom  and  peace,  through  the  clear  perception 
of  the  distinction  between  law  and  Gospel.  In  the  cloister  he  had 
beep  a  student  of  Augustine,  and  of  Occam,  D’Ailly,  and  other  nomi¬ 
nalistic  Schoolmen.  He  was  affected  by  Mystics,  who  partook  of 
the  spirit  of  St.  Bernard,  and  by  such  writings  as  the  sermons  of 
Tauler,  and  that  devout  little  treatise,  which  he  edited  in  1516,  the 
“  German  Theology.”  But  his  strong,  ethical  feeling,  his  vivid 
sense  of  personality  in  God  and  man,  and  of  personal  responsi- 

269 


270 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


bility,  kept  him  from  embracing  Mysticism  in  its  peculiar  char¬ 
acter  as  a  system  of  devotion.  It  is  possible  to  trace  the  progress 
of  Luther’s  mind,  step  by  step,  from  the  year  1513,  until  he 
reached  a  distinct  perception  and  firm  grasp  of  the  doctrine  that 
salvation,  from  beginning  to  end,  is  an  absolutely  free  gift  of  God’s 
grace.1  The  vestiges  of  a  notion  of  merit,  which  was  inherited 
from  Augustine  and  the  Schoolmen,  ceased  at  length  to  mingle  in 
his  enunciation  of  this  profound  conviction.  As  early  as  1516,  he 
propounds  the  statement  that  faith  is  our  justitia  interior —  inward 
righteousness ;  that  yet  it  is  the  gift  of  God,'  and  the  source,  not 
the  consequence,  of  good  works.2  But  utterances  like  these  were 
simply  a  reflex  of  his  religious  life ;  they  were  not  set  forth  in  the 
way  of  opposition  to  the  reigning  orthodoxy.  In  1517,  in  the 
95  Theses,  he  affirmed  that  the  Pope  can  remit  no  penalties  which 
he  has  not  the  power  to  impose ; 3  that  he  has  no  more  power 
in  relation  to  purgatory  than  any  other  bishop,  or  even  any  other 
curate  has  within  his  own  precinct ; 4  that  true  contrition  seeks  and 
loves  punishment ; 5  that  the  true  treasure  of  the  Church  is  the 
Holy  Gospel  of  the  glory  and  grace  of  God.6  “  At  that  time,  so 
far  was  he  from  any  thought  of  breaking  with  the  Church  or  rebel¬ 
ling  against  Rome,  that  he  describes  himself  as  having  been  then 
a  monk  and  a  mad  Papist.” 7  Inconsistent  expressions  respect¬ 
ing  the  Pope  and  his  authority,  signs  of  a  vacillation  of  feeling  on 
this  topic,  which  continued  for  a  considerable  period,  indicate  not 
insincerity,  but  simply  that  he  was  feeling  his  way  on  a  dimly 
lighted  path.  He  tells  us  that  he  was  of  the  number,  of  whom 
Augustine  said  that  he  was  one,  who  advance  gradually,  by  writing 
and  teaching.8  The  Disputation  at  Leipsic,  in  July,  1519,  was 
the  occasion  of  calling  out  from  him  the  avowal  of  a  conviction  to 
which  he  had  now  arrived,  that  the  Church  could  exist  without  a 
Pope  —  a  fact,  he  said,  of  which  the  Greek  Church  furnished  an 
example  —  and  that  not  even  a  General  Council  is  infallible.  It 
was  during  the  last  half  of  the  year  1520,  that  there  were  issued 
from  his  pen  three  publications  of  great  historic  significance,  both 

1  A  catena  of  illustrative  passages  is  given  by  Loofs,  DG.  p.  346  sq.  • 

2  Weimar,  ed.  I.  118,  25-30;  Loofs,  p.  351. 

3  Theses ,  5,  20.  5  Ibid.  40. 

4  Ibid.  25.  6  Ibid.  62. 

7  Prcef.  Oper.  (1545).  In  a  letter  to  Leo  X.  (May  30,  1518)  he  calls  the 
Pope’s  will  the  “voice  of  Christ.”  De  Wette,  Briefe ,  etc.,  I.  122. 

8  Prc£f  Oper-  (1545)- 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


271 


from  the  effect  produced  by  them  and  as  exhibiting  his  now 
ripened  beliefs.  In  his  Address  to  the  German  Noblesse,  he 
struck  a  blow  at  the  root  of  the  entire  hierarchical  system  by  de¬ 
claring  that  the  priest  is  not  distinguished  from  the  layman,  save 
that  the  priest  exercises,  at  the  bidding  of  the  Church  as  its  repre¬ 
sentative,  a  ministerial  office.  All  disciples  are  priests.  If  an 
exigency  should  exist  where  consecration  by  bishops  could  not  be 
obtained,  it  might  be  dispensed  with.  The  choice  of  the  brethren 
would  be  sufficient. 

In  the  “  Babylonian  Captivity  of  the  Church,”  he  takes  up  the 
subject  of  the  sacraments.  There  is  a  threefold  bondage,  he  de¬ 
clares,  under  which  Christians  have  been  placed.  First,  there  is 
the  withholding  of  the  cup  in  the  sacrament.  Secondly,  there  is 
the  theory  of  transubstantiation,  against  which  he  argues,  although 
he  says  that  any  one  who  will  may  accept  it.  He  preaches  the 
doctrine  that  the  bread  and  wine  are  not  changed  as  to  their  sub¬ 
stance,  but  that  in  and  with  them  the  body  and  blood  of  Christ  are 
imparted  and  received.  Thirdly,  there  is  the  false  doctrine  that 
the  sacrament  is  an  opus  operatum —  is  effective  for  good  inde¬ 
pendently  of  faith-*— and  that  it  is  a  sacrifice.  Without  faith,  sac¬ 
raments  are  declared  to  be  useless.  As  to  infants,  the  faith  is  that 
of  those  who  bring  them  to  baptism.  Afterwards  Luther  taught 
that  there  might  be  a  nascent  faith  imparted  in  baptism  to  infants 
themselves.1  Private  confession  is  profitable,  but  it  may  be  made 
to  a  lay  brother.  All  baptized  persons  are,  in  reality,  priests.  The 
ordained  priest  may  even  remit  his  office  and  become  a  layman. 
However  sacred  and  exalted  may  be  the  works  of  priests  and  of 
the  religious  orders,  “  they  differ  not  at  all  in  the  sight  of  God 
from  the  works  of  a  husbandman  laboring  in  his  field  or  a  woman 
attending  to  her  household  affairs.”  “  Of  the  sacrament  of  orders, 
the  Church  of  Christ  knows  nothing ;  it  was  invented  by  the 
Church  of  the  Pope.” 

In  the  little  treatise  on  “  Christian  Liberty,”  Luther  rises  above 
the  level  of  polemics  into  a  more  serene  atmosphere.  He  pre¬ 
sents  a  glowing  picture  of  the  freedom  which  belongs  to  the  soul 
united  by  a  living  faith  to  God  and  Christ.  Precepts  “  show  us 
what  we  ought  to  do,  but  do  not  give  us  the  power  to  do  it.” 
Taught  that  he  is  impotent,  a  man  finds  in  himself  no  means  of 
salvation  and  justification.  Then  come  the  promises  of  God,  words 
1  The  subject  is  discussed  at  length  in  his  Larger  Catechism. 


272 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRI  nTE 


of  holiness,  truth,  righteousness,  and  peace.  The  soul  cleaves  to 
them  with  a  firm  faith,  is  penetrated  by  them,  absorbed  by  them. 
It  receives  from  Christ  all  that  are  His  —  grace,  life,  salvation. 
Such  a  man  will  not  be  careless  or  lead  a  bad  life,  but  will  feel  no 
need  of  works  as  a  ground  of  justification.  “  It  is  not  from  works 
that  we  are  set  free  by  the  faith  of  Christ,  but  from  the  belief  in 
works,  that  is,  from  foolishly  presuming  to  seek  justification  through 
works.”  “  Repentance  comes  from  the  law  of  God,  but  faith  and 
grace  from  the  promises  of  God.” 

In  1521,  Melanchthon  published  the  Loci  Communes ,  the  first 
of  the  Protestant  works  in  systematic  theology.  He  was  at  this 
time  but  twenty-four  years  of  age,  having  been  born  in  1497. 
Luther  was  born  in  1483  and  was,  therefore,  about  fourteen  years 
older.  Melanchthon  was  a  remarkable  instance  of  precocity  in 
youth,  the  promise  of  which  was  nobly  fulfilled  in  maturer  years. 
His  Commentary  on  the  Romans  was  issued  in  1522,  so  that  he 
was  the  pioneer  among  Protestants  in  exegesis  as  well  as  in  dog¬ 
matics.  Of  his  modifications  of  opinion  we  shall  speak  later. 
Erasmus  was  pleased  with  the  first  movements  of  the  Saxon  Re¬ 
formers,  but  more  and  more  stood  aloof  from*  them  as  the  com¬ 
bat  thickened,  and  it  became  evident  that  it  would  lead  to  a 
rupture  in  the  Church.  He  dreaded  the  effect  of  the  controversy 
on  the  cause  of  learning.  He  shrunk  from  participating  in  a  doc¬ 
trinal  conflict,  all  the  more  when  his  sympathy  with  neither  party 
was  undivided.  His  preference  was  to  maintain  a  position  of 
neutrality,  at  least  of  silence ;  but  he  was  too  prominent  a  person 
for  this  to  be  possible.  Urged  in  many  quarters  to  come  out  on 
the  side  of  the  Church,  he  at  length  ventured  to  take  the  field  in 
an  assault  upon  Luther’s  teaching,  at  a  point  where  it  seemed 
especially  vulnerable  and  where  an  opponent  might  count  upon 
extensive  support.1  In  1524,  he  published  his  book  De  Set'vo 
AiLitrio ,  in  which  he  defended  the  Semi-Pelagian  doctrine.  Lu¬ 
ther,  moved  by  the  purpose  to  magnify  grace  and  to  destroy 
every  possible  basis  of  merit,  had  asserted  the  Augustinian  doc¬ 
trine  of  the  Will,  carrying  it  beyond  the  limit  set  by  Augustine 
himself.  In  his  reply  to  Erasmus,  he  reiterated  with  vehemence 
his  propositions  relative  to  human  impotence  and  the  absolute 
control  of  God  within  the  sphere  of  man’s  voluntary  action. 

1  Details  respecting  the  relations  of  Luther  and  Erasmus,  with  illustrative 
extracts,  are  given  in  my  History  of  the  Reformation ,  p.  127  sq. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


273 


Far  more  serious  than  the  debate  with  Erasmus  was  the  great 
Sacramentarian  controversy  with  the  Zwinglians,  which  began 
about  the  same  time.  The  Conference  at  Marburg  in  1529  failed 
to  establish  fellowship  between  the  contending  parties.  At  the 
Diet  in  1530,  the  Augsburg  Confession,  the  authoritative  exposition 
of  the  Lutheran  theology,  and  the  most  influential  of  all  the  Prot¬ 
estant  creeds,  was  presented  by  Melanchthon,  its  author,  after  it 
had  previously  been  approved  by  Luther.  The  copious  Apology 
for  the  Confession  was  likewise  written  by  Melanchthon.  In 
1537,  the  Smalcald  Articles  were  signed  by  the  members  of  the 
League  of  Smalcald.  They  were  composed  by  Luther,  to  be  laid 
before  a  General  Council  which  was  expected  to  be  held  under 
the  auspices  of  Pope  Paul  III.  The  small  and  the  larger  Cate¬ 
chisms  of  Luther,  owing  to  their  extensive  use,  may  be  counted 
among  the  authoritative  symbols  of  Lutheranism. 

From  the  religious  experience  of  Luther  there  emerged  two 
principles,  which  were  not  only  the  defining  characteristics  of  his 
theology,  but  were  likewise  the  essential  principles  of  Protestantism 
everywhere.  At  present  we  confine  our  attention  to  Luther’s  teach¬ 
ing  and  to  the  Lutheran  system.  The  first,  the  “  material,”  princi¬ 
ple,  is  justification  by  faith  alone.  The  second  is  the  normative 
authority  of  the  Bible. 

How  shall  a  sinful  man,  conscious  of  his  sins  and  self-condemned, 
acquire  that  standing  before  God  who  abhors  sin,  that  conscious¬ 
ness  of  his  love  and  favor,  which  belongs  of  right  to  one  who  has 
been  perfectly  obedient  to  the  Divine  law?  The  answer  is,  by 
nothing  that  he  can  do,  by  no  merit  of  his  own,  but  by  faith  alone, 
on  account  of  Christ.  And  what  is  justifying  faith?  It  is,  in  the 
words  of  Luther,  “  a  certain  sure  confidence  of  heart  and  firm  as¬ 
sent  by  which  Christ  is  apprehended,  so  that  Christ  is  the  object 
of  faith,  nay,  not  the  object,  but,  so  to  speak,  in  faith  itself  Christ 
is  present.”  1  }  The  believer  is  “  cemented  ”  to  Christ,  so  that  the 
two  are  made,  as  it  were,  one  person,  inseparably  united,  so  that 
the  believer  can  say,  ‘  I  am  Christ,  that  is,  the  righteousness,  vic¬ 
tory,  life,  etc.,  are  mine  ’ ;  and  in  turn  Christ  can  say,  1 1  am  that 
sinner,  because  he  cleaves  to  me  and  I  to  him,  for  we  are  joined 
by  faith  as  members  of  His  body,  of  His  flesh,  and  His  bones  ’ 
(Eph.  v.  30)  .2  This  close  fellowship  with  Christ  is  part  and  par- 

1  Ad.  Gal.  ii.  16  (  Works ,  Erlangen  ed.  I.  191). 

?  Gal-  ii-  20  (  Works ,  I.  246). 

T 


274 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


cel  of  justifying  faith.  The  believer  “  is  not  thereby  justified  fully 
and  actually,  but  in  hope.  He  has  begun  to  be  justified  and 
healed,”  so  that  what  is  left  of  sin,  “  by  reason  of  Christ,”  is  not 
imputed  to  him.1  There  is  remission  of  sins,  reconciliation  to 
God ;  but  the  foundation  of  the  entire  blessing  is  the  atoning 
work  of  Christ.  It  is  the  “  apprehensive  ”  quality  of  faith,  not  any 
love,  not  any  moral  excellence  of  any  sort,  that  is  involved  in  it, 
that  gives  to  faith  its  justifying  quality.2  Melanchthon,  in  the 
Apology,  says  :  “We  teach  that  rewards  have  been  offered  and 
promised  to  the  works  of  believers.  We  teach  that  good  works 
are  meritorious,  not  for  the  remission  of  sins,  for  grace  or  justifi¬ 
cation  (for  these  we  obtain  only  by  faith),  but  for  other  rewards,” 
according  to  i  Cor.  iii.  8.  “  There  will  be  different  rewards, 

according  to  different  labors.” 3 

The  Reformers  —  and  this  remark  applies  to  Calvin  as  well  as 
to  Luther  and  his  associates  —  make  personal  Assurance  a  part  of 
saving  faith.  It  is  included  in  the  definition  of  faith  in  the 
Augsburg  Confession  (Art.  IV.),  and  in  the  Apology.  The  same 
is  true  of  several  other  Lutheran  Confessions  of  an  early  date. 
The  happy  release  which  the  Reformers  personally  gained  from 
the  bondage  of  fear,  imposed  by  the  mediaeval  doctrine  of 
merit,  naturally  led  to  exaggeration  on  this  topic.  “  The  knowl¬ 
edge  of  the  faith,”  says  the  Apology,  “  brings  sure  and  firm  con¬ 
solation  to  pious  minds.”4  In  various  ways  —  for  example,  in 
dealing  with  Christians  afflicted  with  distrust  —  the  early  Re¬ 
formers  did  not  adhere  consistently  to  the  position  thus  taken. 
It  was  long,  however,  before  it  was  explicitly  abandoned.5 

Such  is  the  nature  of  faith  that  good  works,  such  as  the  law 
requires,  are  its  necessary  fruit.  The  law  is  powerless  either  to 
give  peace  of  conscience,  or  to  engender  righteous  conduct.  But 

1  Ad.  Gal.  ii.  17  sq. 

2  “  If  faith  receive  the  remission  of  sins  on  account  of  love,  the  remission  of 
sins  will  always  be  uncertain  because  we  never  love  as  much  as  we  ought.” 
Apol.  p.  107.  (The  pages  refer  to  Muller’s  Symbolischen  Bucher.  I  have 
frequently  used,  with  slight  revision,  Jacobs’s  The  Symbol.  Books  of  the  Evan- 
gel.  Luth.  Ch.,  Vol.  I.  Philadelphia,  1882.) 

3  Apol.  p.  1 21.  4  Ibid.  1 1 7. 

5  The  Confession  of  the  Westminster  Assembly  denies  that  Assurance  is 
“  of  the  essence  of  saving  faith.”  As  to  the  creeds  as  related  to  this  subject, 
see  Cunningham’s  The  Reformers  and  the  Theology  of  the  Reformation,  Essay 

III.  pp.  124,  125. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


275 


faith  is  efficacious  for  this  last  effect,  as  well  as  for  the  first.  It  is 
so,  not  through  any  legal  spur,  but  because  right  conduct  is  as  the 
free  and  natural  product  of  a  penitent  soul,  pardoned  and  brought 
nigh  to  God,  through  Christ,  and  laying  hold  of  the  promises  of 
mercy  in  the  Gospel.  “  Believers,”  says  Luther,  “  are  a  new 
creature,  a  new  tree.  Therefore  all  those  modes  of  speech,  which 
are  customary  in  the  law,  belong  not  here,  as  :  ‘a  believer  should 
[or  is  bound  to]  do  good  works.’  As  it  is  not  proper  to  say  : 

‘  the  sun  should  shine,’  but  it  does  this  of  itself,  unbidden ;  for  it 
is  made  for  this  ;  so  a  good  tree  of  itself  brings  forth  good 
fruits ;  three  and  seven  are  ten  already,  they  are  not  first  bound 
to  be  ten.  To  say  of  a  sun  that  it  ought  to  shine,  of  a  believer 
that  he  must  do  good,  is  ridiculous.”  1 

No  unprejudiced  student,  whose  mind  is  not  of  too  prosaic  a 
cast  to  be  capable  of  interpreting  a  writer  so  full  of  force  and 
imagination,  a  writer  whose  natural  ardor  breaks  out  in  hyperbole, 
and  whose  vehemence  and  humor  are  alike  irrepressible,  will  think 
of  charging  Luther  with  a  lax  sense  of  moral  obligation  or  a  weak 
apprehension  of  the  guilt  of  sin.  His  writings,  not  to  speak  of 
his  own  religious  experience,  abound  in  contradictions  to  such  a 
reproach.*  An  exhortation  like  “  pecca  fortiter  ”  —  “  sin  on  bravely  ” 
—  is  addressed  to  Melanchthon,  one  of  the  most  conscientious  of 
men,  to  overcome  his  distrust  in  the  amplitude  of  God’s  forgiving 
mercy.  It  is  an  extravagant  mode  of  setting  forth  the  Pauline 
declaration  that  where  sin  abounds,  grace  much  more  abounds.2 
When  the  Saxon  Reformers,  Luther  especially,  use  language  that 
might  seem  to  undervalue  “  the  law,”  they  are  speaking  of  law  as 
the  ground  of  justification.  The  Apostle  Paul  had  to  guard  him¬ 
self  against  a  censorious  criticism  not  unlike  that  to  which  they 
have  been  subject. 

Justification  then,  according  to  Luther  and  his  followers,  was 
forensic.  Its  prime  element  is  the  remission  of  sins.  The  prop¬ 
osition  was  that  faith  is  imputed  for  righteousness,  on  account  of 
the  union  of  the  believer  with  the  Righteous  One.  The  same 
theory,  later  especially,  was  expressed  in  the  statement  that  the 

1  Luther’s  Works  (Halle  ed.),  xxii.  717. 

2  Dean  Church  is  more  just  to  Luther  than  are  many  of  the  same  school  as 
himself.  See  his  remarks  on  the  misinterpretation  of  the  “  pecca  fortiter,”  as 
if  it  were  “  a  provocation  to  sin  or  an  excuse  for  it.”  The  Oxford  Movement, 
p.  307,  note. 


2  j6 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


righteousness  of  Christ  is  imputed  to  the  believer.  That  is  to 
say,  he  is  dealt  with  as  if  the  righteousness  of  the  Saviour  were 
literally  his  own  achievement.  The  distinct  separation  of  the 
active  obedience  of  Christ  from  his  passive  obedience,  or  endurance 
of  suffering,  and  the  doctrine  of  the  imputation  of  both,  belongs 
to  the  later  form  of  Lutheran  theology. 

When  Luther  refers  to  the  Atonement,  he  often  dwells  on  the 
conquest  by  Christ  of  sin  and  death  and  Satan.  But  he  uses 
the  strongest  language  in  describing  the  vicarious  endurance  by 
Christ  of  the  curse  denounced  against  sinners  in  the  law.  “  Christ 
took  all  our  sins  upon  him,  and  for  them  died  upon  the  cross  : 
therefore  it  behoved  that  he  should  become  a  transgressor,  and, 
as  Isaiah  the  prophet  saith,  *  be  reckoned  and  accounted  among 
transgressors  and  trespassers.’  ”  “Christ  is  innocent  as  concern¬ 
ing  his  own  person,  and  therefore  he  ought  not  to  have  been 
hanged  on  a  tree.  .  .  .  But  Christ  sustained  the  person  of  a  sinner 
and  a  thief,  not  of  me,  but  of  all  sinners  and  thieves.” 1  The 
divinity  of  Christ  is  evident  from  the  work  which  he  accom¬ 
plished  ;  for  to  overcome  sin  and  death,  the  curse  and  divine  wrath 
itself,  he  “  must  needs  be  truly  and  naturally  God.” 

It  is  not  in  the  Commentary  on  the  Galatians  alone  that  Luther 
fervently  insists  on  the  truth  of  Christ’s  unification  of  Himself  with 
us,  and  of  the  unification  of  ourselves  with  Him  through  faith.  In 
all  his  writings  which  pertain  to  the  subject,  the  same  thought  is 
prominent.2  The  soul  of  the  Reformer  entered  deeply  into  the 
crushing  feeling  of  guilt,  as  distinguished  from  that  of  misery  or 
finite  weakness.  In  this  feeling,  we  first  appreciate  our  unworthi¬ 
ness,  but  at  the  same  time  understand  the  value  of  our  personality 
in  the  eyes  of  God.  The  longing  for  expiation  or  atonement  in¬ 
volves  the  first  pure  ethical  impulse.  Conscious  of  our  helpless- 
ness,  our  inability  to  make  an  atonement  ourselves,  we  are  met  by 
the  joyful  tidings  of  a  Mediator,  sent  from  God,  and  of  a  right¬ 
eousness  in  Him,  which  corresponds  to  the  divine  righteousness. 
This  righteousness,  although,  in  the  first  instance,  it  is  His,  may 
also  become  ours  through  faith  ;  faith  being  the  personal  assent 
and  affirmation  which  we  give  to  that  Love  on  His  part  which 
takes  our  place,  to  its  righteousness,  holiness,  and  power.  This 

1  Gal.  iii.  13. 

2  Luther’s  ideas  on  this  theme  are  clearly  presented  by  Dorner,  Person 
Christi,  II.  513  sq. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


2  77 


substitution  on  His  part  carries  in  it  so  high  a  respect  for  us  as 
individuals,  for  our  personality,  that  it  does  not  aim  to  do  away 
with  it,  or  to  absorb  it.  The  aim  is,  rather,  to  present  it  as  right¬ 
eous  before  God  in  a  substitution  which  shall  act  upon  it,  recog¬ 
nizing  it  all  the  time  as  a  separate  personality,  while  the  individual, 
on  his  side,  gives  himself  up  to  Christ  in  faith,  to  be  moulded  by 
His  plastic  influence  into  the  divine  image,  to  be  transformed  into 
a  child  of  God  —  a  child  in  whom,  reconciled  and  made  holy,  the 
righteousness  of  God  attains  to  a  personal  manifestation.  By  faith 
we  are  drawn  into  the  spiritual  death  of  penitence,  through  the 
consciousness  of  being  condemned  in  Him,  but  not  without  at  the 
same  time  becoming  aware  of  the  divine  will  to  save  us  —  save  our 
personal  being  itself —  as  reconciled  in  Christ.  Luther  states  that 
before  the  Evangelical  doctrine  was  brought  out,  preachers  aimed 
to  depict  to  their  hearers  the  sufferings  of  Christ  for  the  purpose 
of  exciting  their  pity,  and  to  make  them  weep.  This,  he  says,  is 
wrong.  We  make  the  right  use  of  Christ’s  sufferings,  when  we  are 
led,  by  seeing  Christ  so  sorrowful  on  our  account,  to  sorrow  for 
ourselves,  for  the  sins  that  made  Him  mourn  and  suffer.  We  are 
to  mourn  over  ourselves,  and  not  over  Him.  His  contrition  in 
our  behalf  should  make  us  contrite.  Christ  is  to  Luther  the  Child 
of  God,  who  offers  Himself  to  our  faith  that  we  may  be  clothed 
upon  with  divine  sonship.  God  gives  to  us  His  Son,  and  tells  us 
that  He  is  well  pleased  with  all  that  Christ  says  and  does  for  us. 
“  Thinkest  thou  not  that  if  a  human  heart  truly  felt  that  good- 
pleasure  which  God  has  in  Christ  when  He  thus  serves  us,  it  would 
for  very  joy  burst  into  a  hundred  thousand  pieces?  For  then  it 
would  see  into  the  abyss  of  the  fatherly  heart,  yea  into  the  fath¬ 
omless  and  eternal  goodness  and  love  of  God,  which  He  feels 
towards  us,  and  has  felt  from  eternity?”1  “God’s  good-pleasure 
and  His  whole  heart  thou  seest  in  Christ,  in  all  His  words  and 
works ;  ”  and  in  turn  Christ  is  in  God’s  heart,  and  an  object  of 
His  good-pleasure.  Since  Christ  is  thine  and  mine,  we,  too,  are 
in  the  same  good-pleasure  of  God,  and  as  deep  in  His  heart  as 
Christ  Himself.  “  We  must  first  be  in  Christ,  with  all  our  nature, 
sin,  death,  and  weakness,  and  know  that  we  are  freed  therefrom, 
and  redeemed,  and  pronounced  blessed  by  this  Christ.  We  must 
swing  above  ourselves  and  beyond  ourselves  over  upon  Him,  yea 
be  utterly  incorporated  in  Him,  and  be  His  own.”  Then  sin,  and 
.  1  Festpostill,  von  der  Taufe  Chnsti. 


278 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


fear,  and  death  are  gone  :  “  I  know  of  no  death  or  hell.  For  I 
know  that  as  Christ  is  in  the  Father,  I  am,  also,  in  Christ.”  “  In 
fine,  by  the  word  we  become  incorporated  in  Christ,  so  that  all 
that  He  has  is  ours,  and  we  can  take  Him  on,  as  our  own  body. 
He  in  turn  must  take  on  Himself  all  that  which  befalls  us,  so  that 
neither  the  world,  the  devil,  nor  any  calamity  can  hurt  or  over¬ 
come  us.”  “One  must  teach  of  faith  correctly  —  even  thus  — 
that  by  it  you  become  bound  and  united  with  Christ,  so  that  out 
of  Him  and  you  there  arises,  as  it  were,  one  person,  which  does 
not  suffer  the  two  to  be  parted  or  sundered  from  one  another,'  but 
where  you  evermore  hang  on  Christ,  and  can  say  with  joy  and  com¬ 
fort  —  ‘  I  am  Christ ;  not  personally ;  but  Christ’s  righteousness, 
victory,  life,  and  everything  which  He  has,  is  my  own ;  ’  and  so 
that  Christ  can  say  —  ‘I  am  this  poor  sinner,  that  is  all  his  sin 
and  death  are  my  sins  and  my  death,  since  he  hangs  on  me  by 
faith,  I  on  him,’  —  therefore,  St.  Paul  says,  ‘  we  are  members  of 
Christ’s  body,  of  His  flesh  and  His  bones.’  Wherefore  when  you 
in  this  affair  separate  your  person  and  that  of  Christ  from  one 
another,  you  are  under  the  law  and  live  not  in  Christ.”  Christ  has 
taken  on  our  flesh,  which  is  full  of  sin,  and  has  felt  all  woe  and  calam¬ 
ity,  has  demeaned  Himself  not  otherwise  before  God,  His  Father, 
than  if  He  had  Himself  done  all  the  sin  which  we  have  done, 
and  “as  if  He  had  deserved  all  that  which  we  have  deserved.”1 

The  doctrine  of  Luther  is  that  the  uncreated  Son  of  God  has 
entered  into  human  nature,  has  become  man,  has  thus  closely 
united  Himself  to  us,  has,  in  the  fulness  of  His  love  and  sympathy, 
taken  upon  His  heart  the  whole  burden  of  man  as  a  sinner,  has 
taken  us  up  into  His  heart,  making  our  case  absolutely  His  own, 
has  bewailed  our  sins  before  God,  and  died  as  if  He  had  been 
Himself  a  sinner ;  that  the  end  of  all  is  to  fashion  us  like  Himself, 
into  the  image  of  God  as  His  children ;  that  in  all  this  love  to  us 
and  service  in  our  behalf,  the  Father  is  well  pleased,  and  receives 
us  in  Christ,  provided  we  accept  Him,  cordially  recognize  the 
meaning  of  His  grief,  and  giving  up,  as  it  were,  our  isolated  indi¬ 
viduality,  surrender  ourselves  to  Him  to  be  moulded  into  the  like¬ 
ness  of  His  Sonship.  All  things  that  belong  to  God  are  His,  and 
all  things  that  are  His  are  ours.  What  Christ  becomes  and  does 
for  us,  as  our  representative,  is  eventually  reproduced  through  Him 
within  us. 


1  Festpostill  in  der  Friihchristmess. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


279 


As  early  as  1525,  the  second,  or  formal  principle,  that  of  the 
exclusive  authority  of  the  Scriptures,  was  definitely  associated  with 
the  first,  with  the  doctrine  of  Justification.  It  was  implied  in  all 
the  denials  by  Luther  of  the  authority  of  the  Pope,  taken  in  con¬ 
nection  with  his  avowal  at  the  Leipsic  Disputation  that  Councils 
might  err,  with  the  same  declaration  at  the  Diet  of  Worms,  in  the 
presence  of  the  representatives  of  the  German  Empire,  and  with 
numerous  expressions  elsewhere  of  the  same  general  tenor.  Re¬ 
specting  the  Canon,  the  Protestants,  instructed  by  Jerome  and 
Origen,  universally  denied  the  right  of  the  Old  Testament  apocry¬ 
pha  to  rank  with  normative  Scriptures.  The  principle  of  “  the 
analogy  of  faith  ”  was  introduced ;  that  is,  the  principle  that  the 
central  doctrines  which  are  perspicuously  set  forth  in  the  Bible, 
are  to  govern  the  interpretation  of  passages  which  are  more  or  less 
,  obscure. 

At  first  view  it  seems  difficult  to  harmonize  critical  statements 
of  Luther  relative  to  canonical  books  and  to  the  inspiration  of 
Biblical  writers,  with  the  principle  that  the  Bible  is  the  rule  of 
faith.1  No  one  could  speak  with  more  reverence  for  Holy  Writ 
than  Luther  often  speaks.  Yet  many  of  the  statements  of  the 
kind  just  referred  to  are  found  in  the  Preface  of  his  translation  of 
the  New  Testament,  —  put  there  for  all  the  world  to  read.  He 
ascribes  to  the  several  books  different  degrees  of  doctrinal  value 
and  of  insight  into  the  essence  of  the  Gospel.  “  St.  John’s  Gos¬ 
pel,”  he  says,  “and  his  first  Epistle,  St.  Paul’s  Epistles,  especially 
those  to  the  Romans,  Galatians,  -Ephesians,  and  St.  Peter’s  First 
Epistle,  —  these  are  the  book^wnich  show  to  thee  Christ,  and 
teach  everything  that  it  is  necessary  and  blessed  for  thee  to  know, 
even  if  you  were  never  to  see  or  hear  any  other  book  or  doctrine. 
Therefore  St.  James’s  Epistle  is  a  perfect  straw-epistle  compared 
with  them,  for  it  has  in  it  nothing  of  an  evangelic  kind.”  It  must 
be  observed  that  he  did  not  question  the  genuineness  of  this  to 
his  mind  (comparatively)  valueless  epistle.  The  prophets,  he 
says,  studied  Moses,  and  the  later  prophets  the  earlier,  and  have 
written  their  thoughts  down  which  were  given  by  the  Holy  Ghost. 
But  “if  sometimes  there  mingled  in  hay,  straw,  wood,  and  not 

1  Vorrede  auf  das  N.  T.  (1524).  Like  criticisms,  but  less  severe,  are  in 
the  Leipsic  Theses  (1519)  and  in  the  Babylonian  Captivity  (1520).  He  had  an 
unfavorable  opinion,  varying  somewhat  from  time  to  time,  on  Jude,  Hebrews, 
and  the  Apocalypse. 


28o 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


solely  silver,  gold,  and  precious  stones,  nevertheless,  the  founda¬ 
tion  abides  while  the  fire  consumes  the  rest.  ” 1  That  the  con¬ 
tents  rather  than  the  author  of  the  book  is  the  point  of  chief  im¬ 
portance  is  implied  in  what  he  says  of  Genesis  :  “What  matter  if 
Moses  did  not  write  it?”  Luther  ascribes  an  error  to  Stephen 
in  Acts  vii.  2  (compare  Gen.  xii.  1-4).  How  are  observations 
of  which  the  foregoing  are  prominent  examples,  compatible  with 
the  recognition  of  an  objective  seat  of  authority?  Luther’s  re¬ 
ligious  history  furnishes  the  clew  to  the  answer.  It  was  the  truth 
of  Christ  as  the  Saviour  from  condemnation  under  law,  the  truth 
of  salvation  by  grace  alone,  which  came  home  to  him  with  such 
power  as  to  be  its  own  attestation.  Those  Scriptures  in  which  the 
truth,  considered  to  be  the  substance  of  the  Gospel,  had  the  central 
place,  furnished  the  criterion  for  gauging  the  relative  value  and 
the  degree  of  inspiration  to  be  attributed  to  the  other  sacred 
writings.  The  doctrine  of  Justification  by  Faith  served  as  a  stan¬ 
dard  for  a  species  of  criticism  which  otherwise  might  seem  to  be 
purely  subjective,  if  not  arbitrary. 

“  The  ‘  Word  of  God  ’  is  a  phrase  which  signifies  to  Luther  the 
Gospel  of  God’s  grace,  whether  it  be  proclaimed  orally  or  in 
Scripture.  This  Gospel  is  to  be  believed  because  it  is  God’s 
Word,  and  because  it  verifies  itself  within  the  soul.  Yet  the 
identity  of  the  Holy  Scriptures  with  the  Word  of  God  is  gener¬ 
ally  assumed  by  Luther,  and  is  occasionally  expressed  in  explicit 
language. 

The  Word  and  the  Sacraments  were  affirmed  to  be  the  means 
of  grace.  Through  these  and  in  connection  with  them,  the 
agency  of  the  Spirit  is  exerted.  Carlstadt  and  the  enthusiasts  with 
him  whose  disturbances  at  Wittenberg  moved  Luther  against  the 
remonstrance  of  the  Elector  to  leave  his  asylum  in  the  Wartburg, 
sought  to  magnify  the  influence  of  the  Spirit  by  making  it  inde¬ 
pendent  of  the  Word.  On  the  ground  of  the  alleged  instigation 
of  the  Spirit,  they  disparaged  knowledge  and  study,  besides  hurry¬ 
ing  forward  to  introduce  sweeping  changes  in  the  rites  of  worship. 
Against  this  species  of  subjectivism,  Luther  resolutely  and  success¬ 
fully  contended.  The  Apology  for  the  Augsburg  Confession,  like 
the  “  Babylonian  Captivity,”  associated  Absolution  as  a  sacrament, 
along  with  Baptism  and  -the  Lord’s  Supper.  But  in  the  Smalcald 
Articles,  Absolution  is  not  reckoned  among  the  sacraments,  and  it 

Tisch  reden. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


28l 


ceased  to  be  so  regarded  by  the  Lutherans.  Of  the  sacraments 
in  general  the  Augsburg  Confession  teaches  that  they  “  were  or¬ 
dained  not  only  as  marks  of  profession  amongst  men,  but  still 
more  as  signs  and  testimonies  of  the  will  of  God  towards  us,  set 
forth  for  the  purpose  of  exciting  faith  in  such  as  use  them. 
Wherefore  sacraments  are  to  be  used  so  that  there  may  be  joined 
faith  that  believes  the  promises,  which  through  the  sacraments 
are  exhibited  and  shown.”1  It  is  the  word  and  promise  of  God 
which  gives  to  the  ceremony  the  character  of  a  sacrament.  The 
effect  of  Baptism  is  briefly  set  forth  in  the  Large  Catechism  of 
Luther.  “  Every  Christian  has  enough  in  Baptism  to  learn  and  to 
practise  all  his  life.  For  he  has  always  enough  to  do  to  believe 
firmly  what  Baptism  promises  and  brings,  viz.,  victory  over  death 
and  the  devil,  forgiveness  of  sin,  the  grace  of  God,  the  entire 
Christ  and  the  Holy  Ghost  with  his  gifts.” 2  Denying  that  any 
change  is  wrought  in  the  water  and  that  any  magical  operation 
belongs  to  this  or  to  any  other  sacrament,  Luther  and  his  followers 
still  insisted  on  the  great  importance  of  baptism.  “  What  God 
does  and  works  in  us,  He  proposes  to  work  through  such  external 
institutions.” 3  I11  the  Augsburg  Confession,  Baptism  is  affirmed 

to  be  essential  to  salvation.  As  to  the  Lord’s  Supper,  while  the 
nature  of  the  bread  and  wine  remains  unaltered,  yet  the  body  and 
blood  are  so  inseparable  from  them,  that,  to  quote  Luther  in  the 
Smalcald  Articles,4  at  the  same  time  that  “  the  sophistical  subtlety 
concerning  transubstantiation  ”  is  discarded,  “  the  bread  and  wine 
in  the  Supper  are  the  true  body  and  blood  of  Christ,  and  are 
given  and  received  not  only  by  the  godly,  but  also  by  wicked 
Christians.” 

Inseparable  from  this  idea  of  the  Real  Presence  of  Christ  in  such 
a  sense  that  all  partakers  of  the  sacrament  receive  His  body  and 
blood,  is  the  doctrine  of  the  Saxon  Reformers  respecting  the  per¬ 
son  of  Christ.  It  is  the  doctrine  of  the  interchange  of  the  human 
and  divine  attributes  of  the  Saviour.  Through  this  communica¬ 
tion  of  qualities,  divine  attributes  are  imparted  to  the  human 
nature,  whereby  there  follows  the  omnipresence  of  Christ  as  a 
man. 

The  Church  is  not  the  hierarchy,  not  the  organized  institution, 
but  is  really  and  primarily  “  the  communion  of  saints.”  Luther 

1  Art.  XIII.  3  Larger  Catechism ,  p.  489. 

2  Ibid.  pp.  471,  491.  4  Art.  VI. 


282 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


interprets  this  phrase  in  the  Apostles’  Creed  as  synonymous  with 
the  “  holy  Catholic  Church.”  It  is  the  society  of  true  believers, 
and  as  such  it  is  invisible.  Otherwise,  it  would  not  be,  as  the 
creed  declares  it  to  be,  an  object  of  faith.  Yet,  as  Melanchthon 
avers  in  the  Loci ,  it  is  not  a  Platonic  state.  It  is  not  a  dream  of 
Utopia ;  but  exists  in  a  concrete  form,  and  has  definite  marks  of 
its  reality.  It  is  “  the  congregation  of  saints  in  which  the  Gospel 
is  rightly  taught  and  the  sacraments  rightly  administered.”  1  It  is 
not  necessary  that  “  traditions,  rites,  or  ceremonies  ”  of  human 
institution  “  should  be  alike  everywhere.”  There  is  another  clause 
in  the  article  which  was  not  so  consistently  carried  out  practically : 
“  Unto  the  unity  of  the  Church,  it  is  sufficient  to  agree  concerning 
the  doctrine  of  the  Gospel  and  the  administration  of  the  sacra¬ 
ments.”  Melanchthon  argues  earnestly  against  the  theory  that 
virtuous  heathen,  men  who  had  no  knowledge  of  Christ,  can  be 
considered  to  have  been  members  of  the  Church  or  in  a  salvable 
condition.2  The  clergy  are  neither  infallible  interpreters  of  Script¬ 
ures,  nor  mediators  between  the  congregation  and  God  ;  for  through 
Christ  the  way  of  access  is  opened  for  all.  The  clergy  are  minis¬ 
ters  of  the  flock,  commissioned  to  offer  no  sacrifice,  as  if  the  sacri¬ 
fice  of  Christ  required  a  supplement ;  and  the  power  of  the  keys, 
embracing  the  power  to  exclude  the  unworthy  from  ecclesiastical 
fellowship,  was  given  to  the  congregation  as  a  body.3  To  this  body 
belongs  the  right  to  choose  and  to  induct  into  office  its  ministers. 
These  ministers  are  on  a  footing  of  equality.  All  distinctions  of 
rank  among  them  are  of  human  origin.  Christ  is  the  head  of  the 
Church  ;  the  headship  of  the  Pope  is  in  violation  of  the  Gospel. 

In  their  conception  of  original  sin,  of  its  guilt  and  power,  the 
Lutheran  Reformers  went  beyond  the  teaching  of  the  most  con¬ 
servative  of  the  Schoolmen.  It  was  the  native  sinfulness  of  men 
on  which  they  chiefly  dwelt.  Nothing  is  said  of  the  imputation 
of  Adam’s  sin,  in  the  Augsburg  Confession  or  in  the  Apology. 
Melanchthon  says  that  by  reason  of  our  native  corruption,  conse¬ 
quent  on  the  fall  of  Adam,  we  are  born  guilty  (or  exposed  to  pun¬ 
ishment)  ,  and  ‘  children  of  wrath  ’ ;  that  is,  condemned  of  God. 

1  Angsb.  Confession,  VII. 

2  Loci  (ed.  Erlangen,  1828),  p.  287.  “Intuecamur  coetum  vocatorum,  qui 
est  ecclesia  visibilis,  nec  alibi  electos  ullos  esse  somniemus,  nisi  in  hoc  ipso.” 
P.  283. 

3  Smalcald  Articles,  VII. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


283 


“  If  any  one  chooses  to  add  that  men  are  guilty,  also,  for  the  fall  of 
Adam,  I  do  not  stand  in  the  way.”  1  But,  he  goes  on  to  say,  the 
prophets  and  apostles,  with  whom  Augustine,  Hugo,  Bonaventura, 
are  in  agreement,  teach  that  original  sin  is  not  imputation  alone, 
but  our  depraved  nature.  The  foundation  of  our  guilt  ( reatus  — 
“fundamentum  hujus  relationis  ”  —  is  “ipsum  vitium  nobiscum 
nascens.”2  It  is  propagated  corruption  that  is  referred  to  when 
the  Apostle  (Rom.  v.  12)  says,  for  that  all  have  sinned  —  “  quia 
omnes  peccaverunt.”  We  will  guard  against  the  idea  that  men  are 
condemned  for  Adam’s  sin  alone.2  In  the  Lutheran  Creed,  con¬ 
cupiscence  is  asserted  to  be  not  only  a  seeking  for  the  pleasure  of 
the  body,  but  also  carnal  wisdom  and  righteousness,  hatred  of  God’s 
judgment,  flight  from  God,  anger  towards  Him,  confidence  “in 
present  things,” — that  is,  in  earthly  good.  So  the  Apology 
teaches.3  In  the  later  Form  of  Concord,  we  read  that  original  sin 
“  is  so  deep  a  corruption  of  human  nature  that  nothing  healthy 
or  incorrupt  in  a  man’s  body  or  soul,  in  inner  or  outward  powers,” 
is  left.4  The  consequences  of  inborn,  sin  are  positive  as  well  as 
negative.  The  effect  is  a  total  inability  of  will  as  far  as  all  actions 
holy  or  pleasing  to  God  are  concerned. 

The  boldness  of  Luther,  his  defiance  of  ecclesiastical  decrees 
against  him,  his  vehement  and  often  contemptuous  denunciation 
of  many  traditional  opinions,  might  give  the  impression  that  he 
was  a  radical  in  the  general  character  of  his  theology.  So  far 
from  this  being  true,  his  movement  is  rather  to  be  styled  the  con¬ 
servative  branch  of  the  Reformation.  In  the  retention  of  rites 
and  customs  he  did  not  require  an  explicit  authorization  from 
Scripture.  Enough  that  they  were  not  forbidden,  and  are  ex¬ 
pedient  and  useful.  His  aversion  to  breaking  loose  from  the 
essentials  of  Latin  Christianity  in  matters  of  doctrine  is  equally 
manifest.  The  Apostles’  Creed  and  the  Nicene  Creed  are  adopted 
in  the  Augsburg  Confession,  in  the  Apology,  and  in  the  Smalcald 
Articles.  Luther’s  respect  for  the  teaching  of  the  Church,  not¬ 
withstanding  his  protest  against  corruptions,  was  so  impassioned, 
that  unreconciled  utterances  concerning  doctrine  are  left  in  his 
writings,  —  instances  of  disharmony  between  the  old  point  of 
view  and  the  new.5  On  matters  of  doctrine,  he  declares,  the 

1  “non  iinpedio.”  Loci  (ed.  Hase),  p.  86. 

2  Loci  (ed.  Hase),  p.  92.  3  Apology,  78.  4  Form .  Cone.  p.  494. 

5  On  this  topic  see  the  citations  in  Loofs,  DG.  p.  370  sq. 


284 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


view  of  the  whole  world  for  a  thousand  years  is  not  to  be  regarded. 
Yet,  when  arguing  for  his  views  of  the  Real  Presence,  he  says 
that  “  the  testimony  of  the  entire  holy  Christian  Church,  even 
without  any  other  proof,  should  be  sufficient,  ...  for  it  is  peril¬ 
ous  and  terrible  to  hear  or  believe  anything  against  the  united 
testimony,  faith,  and  doctrine  of  the  entire  holy  Christian  Church 
.  .  .  for  now  over  fifteen  hundred  years.”  This,  he  says,  would 
be  to  nullify  the  promise  of  Christ,  to  be  with  His  Church.  We 
have  already  spoken  of  the  use  of  the  phrase  ‘  Word  of  God,’ 
now  as  denoting  the  central  truth  of  the  Gospel,  and  now  as 
covering  the  entire  Scriptures.  Luther’s  doctrine  of  absolute 
predestination,  even  sin  being  attributed  to  the  causative  agency 
of  God,  was  not  wholly  the  fruit  of  a  zeal  to  shut  out  everything 
that  might  be  perverted  into  a  Pelagian  philosophy.  It  was  partly 
an  acceptance  of  the  Scotist  and  Nominalistic  notion  of  God’s 
will  and  sovereignty  as  the  ultimate  basis  of  whatever  he  com¬ 
mands  or  decrees. 


CHAPTER  II 


THE  THEOLOGY  OF  ZWINGLI - THE  EUCHARISTIC  CONTROVERSY - 

PARTIES  IN  THE  LUTHERAN  CHURCH  TO  THE  FORM  OF  CONCORD 

O58o) 

Zwingli  was  born  on  the  1st  of  January,  1484,  and  thus  was  only 
seven  weeks  younger  than  Luther,  who  was  born  on  the  10th  of 
the  preceding  November.  The  two  Protestant  leaders  were  quite 
unlike  in  temperament,  cast  of  mind,  and  culture.  Luther  was  a 
Humanist.  The  only  two  books  which  he  carried  into  the  cloister 
were  Vergil  and  Plautus.  He  was  a  champion  of  the  new  learn¬ 
ing,  to  foster  which  was  one  motive  in  the  founding  of  the  Univer¬ 
sity  of  Wittenberg.  But  with  him  the  interest  of  literature  sank  out 
of  sight  in  comparison  with  the  cause  of  religion  and  the  claims  of 
theology.  With  Zwingli,  the  influence  of  Humanism  went  deeper 
and  modified  the  texture  of  his  theological  system.  He  had  met 
Erasmus  and  exchanged  letters  with  him.  His  doctrine  of  the 
Sacrament  was  first  suggested  to  him  by  Erasmus,  although  its 
source  was  in  the  teaching  of  John  Wesel.  On  fundamental  points, 
Zwingli  differed  from  Erasmus,  for  he  was  of  too  robust  a  nature 
to  be  a  servile  adherent.  He  renounced  the  teachings  of  Rome 
gradually,  as  the  result  of  the  study  of  the  Bible  and  of  reflection, 
without  passing  through  any  such  spiritual  struggles  —  any  such 
distress  from  a  sense  of  condemnation  —  as  Luther  experienced. 
It  cost  him  no  spiritual  conflict  to  throw  off  the  yoke  of  ecclesi¬ 
astical  authority,  which  had  rested  somewhat  lightly  upon  him. 
Hence,  while  holding  clearly  and  firmly  to  the  doctrine  of  Justifi¬ 
cation  by  grace  without  merit,  it  did  not  assume  all  that  over¬ 
shadowing  importance  which  it  had  in  the  eyes  of  Luther.  The 
starting-point  in  Zwingli’s  construction  of  theology  is  predestina¬ 
tion  or  the  divine  purposes.  Even  this  doctrine  was  quite  as 
much  a  theoretic  postulate  as  a  practical,  urgent  truth.  Quite 

285 


286 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


different  was  the  conception  of  it  in  Calvin.  As  Zwingli  did  not 
share  in  the  Saxon  Reformer’s  inbred  reverence  for  the  past,  and 
was  not  affected,  as  Luther  was,  by  the  mingling  of  imagination 
in  his  temper  of  feeling,  he  felt  no  reluctance  to  cast  aside  rites 
and  customs  not  enjoined,  even  if  they  were  not  forbidden,  in 
Scripture,  nor  did  he  hesitate  to  reject  any  interpretation  that,  in 
his  opinion,  could  not  stand  the  cool  scrutiny  of  the  understand¬ 
ing.  There  was  a  curious  blending  in  his  spirit  of  the  tone  of  the 
Renaissance  and  that  of  the  Protestant  Reform.  There  is  another 
respect  in  which  there  was  a  marked  contrast  between  Luther  and 
Zwingli.  Luther  was  a  man  of  the  people,  conversant  with  their 
wants  and  ways,  and,  although  hostile  to  revolutionary  movements 
and  measures,  was  not  wanting  in  sympathy  with  all  classes.  But 
Zwingli  was  a  social  reformer,  as  well  as  a  religious  leader.  He 
felt  that  an  ethical  renovation  was  called  for,  and  that  the  recovery 
of  the  State  from  debasement  was  necessarily  involved  in  securing 
the  proper  effect  of  the  Gospel  upon  individuals.  Joining  as  a 
chaplain  those  who  took  up  arms  in  a  righteous  cause,  he  fell  in 
battle. 

In  1518,  Zwingli  preached  at  Einsiedeln  against  the  traffic  in 
indulgences.  This  brought  on  no  breach  with  the  authorities 
of  the  Church.  He  continued  to  receive  a  pension  from  the 
Pope  until  1520.  In  1519,  he  entered  upon  his  labors  at  Zurich. 
He  was  fully  resolved  to  follow  the  Scriptures  fearlessly.  His 
sermons  were  expositions  of  the  books  of  the  New  Testament. 
In  1522,  a  discourse  in  which  it  was  asserted  that  there  was  no 
biblical  ground  for  prohibiting  the  eating  of  meat  in  Lent  brought 
him  into  conflict  with  the  Bishop  of  Constance.  In  the  same 
year  he  was  married  secretly,  his  marriage  not  being  publicly 
made  known  for  two  years.  After  the  sermon  relating  to  Lent, 
the  question  was  whether  the  municipal  government  of  Zurich  — 
the  burgomaster  and  the  two  councils  —  would  sustain  him  in  his 
rejection  of  the  ceremonies  ordained  by  the  Church.  There 
followed,  under  order  of  the  government,  three  public  Disputations, 
in  which  Zwingli  defended  his  own  position  and  assailed  that 
of  his  opponents.  In  preparation  for  the  first,  he  drew  up 
(in  1523)  sixty-seven  Articles  of  belief.  In  these  he  makes  fore¬ 
most  the  assertion  of  the  sufficiency  of  the  Saviour’s  atoning 
death,  and  his  place  as  the  “  one,  eternal,  and  supreme  priest  ” 
(14),  the  declaration  that  the  mass  is  not  a  sacrifice,  but  a  com- 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


287 


memoration  of  the  always  valid  sacrifice  of  Christ,  and,  as  it  were, 
“ a  seal  of  onr  redemption”  (18),  that  no  other  mediator  is 
necessary  (20),  that  a  Christian  is  bound  to  keep  no  rules 
relating  to  meats  and  drinks  which  Christ  has  not  established  (24), 
*  that  the  same  is  true  of  ordinances  respecting  times  and  places 
(25),  that  Christians  are  to  call  no  one  “  Father”  on  earth,  all 
of  them  being  brethren  (27),  that  marriage  ought  not  to  be 
forbidden  to  the  clergy  (29),  that  confession  to  one’s  priest  or 
one’s  neighbor  should  be  only  to  obtain  advice,  not  for  the 
remission  of  sins  (52,  53),  that  the  imposing  of  penance  is  a 
human  tradition  and  is  of  no  value  (53),  that  the  Scriptures  know 
nothing  of  a  purgatory  (57),  and  that,  although  prayers  that  grace 
may  be  given  to  the  departed  are  not  excluded,  no  limit  of  time 
is  to  be  set  up  for  the  offering  of  them  and  no  gain  to  be  sought 
through  them  (60).  The  second  of  the  three  Disputations  was 
chiefly  on  the  Mass,  and  at  the  conclusion  of  the  third  the 
magistrates  decided  against  its  continuance  in  the  churches. 
The  complete  abolition  of  the  Roman  worship  soon  followed. 
All  relics  and  pictures  and  crucifixes  were  removed  from  the 
churches,  pictures  from  the  walls  were  effaced,  altars  and  candles 
taken  away,  and  the  bones  of  the  saints  buried.  Zwingli  delighted 
in  music,  but  the  organs  were  finally  excluded  from  the  places 
of  worship.  In  1525,  the  crucifixes,  the  chalices,  and  other  vessels 
and  ornaments  of  gold  and  silver  were  melted  or  otherwise  dis¬ 
posed  of,  and  the  robes  of  the  clergy  sold  or  given  away.  This 
crusade  against  all  that  was  thought  to  be  idolatry  or  to  savor 
of  it  was  a  defining  characteristic  of  the  Swiss  as  distinguished 
from  the  German  Reformation.  In  1529,  Zwingli  published  his 
first  theological  work,  the  “  Commentary  on  True  and  False  Relig¬ 
ion.”  A  creed,  the  “  Ratio  Fidei ,”  was  presented  by  him  at  the 
Diet  of  Augsburg  in  1530.  Another  confession  from  his  pen, 
written  shortly  before  his  death,  and  addressed  to  Francis  I.,  King 
of  France,  was  published  in  1536,  by  Bullinger,  his  successor  at 
Zurich. 

Zwingli  taught,  as  did  the  Lutherans,  that  the  Bible  is  the  rule 
of  faith.  He  accepted  as  canonical  all  the  books,  except  the 
Apocalypse.  Of  this  he  said  at  the  Disputation  at  Berne  in  1529, 
“  it  is  not  a  biblical  book.”  There  was  no  serious  difference  with 
Luther  on  the  doctrine  of  Predestination.  Zwingli  extends  the  effi¬ 
cient  decrees  and  the  agency  of  Providence  over  the  first  sin  as  well 


288 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


as  over  all  others,  and  sets  forth  this  opinion  in  the  baldest  terms.1 
He  differs  from  the  Saxon  Reformers  in  holding  that  the  elect  are 
not  confined  to  the  number  of  the  baptized,  or  even  to  those  to 
whom  Christ  is  preached.  All  children  of  Christian  parents,  who 
die  in  infancy,  are  saved,  and  we  are  not  to  despair  of  the  salvation- 
of  the  infant  children  of  the  heathen.  Moreover,  all  true  and 
virtuous  men,  all  the  good  and  faithful,  will  be  found  in  heaven. 
He  includes  among  them  Socrates,  Aristides,  Numa,  the  Catos, 
the  Scipios,  and  the  mythical  heroes,  Theseus  and  Hercules.2 
On  the  subject  of  original  sin,  we  find  in  Zwingli  a  like  latitude  of 
opinion.  Original  sin  in  the  descendants  of  Adam  does  not  in¬ 
volve  guilt.  It  is  a  disorder  simply :  “  Morbus  est  et  conditio.” 
We  are  in  the  situation  of  the  servants  or  children  of  one  taken 
captive  in  war.  In  these  two  articles,  the  drift  of  Zwingli’s  thought 
and  the  influence  of  the  tone  of  the  Renaissance  is  apparent.  But 
the  great  point  of  diversity  from  Luther  was  in  relation  to  the  Eu¬ 
charist.  In  1524,  Carlstadt,  a  leader  of  the  Radicals  and  Enthu¬ 
siasts  at  Wittenberg,  proposed  the  absurd  interpretation  that  on 
uttering  the  words  “  this  is  my  body,”  Jesus  by  a  gesture  pointed 
to  His  own  body.  From  this  time  Luther  assumed  an  attitude  of 
hostility  to  every  figurative  view  of  the  words  of  the  institution, 
and  maintained  the  literal  exposition.  Zwingli  set  forth  his  opinion 
in  1525,  and  in  1526  the  polemical  dicussion  between  the  Ger¬ 
man  and  the  Swiss  Reformer  had  its  beginning.  The  doctrine  of 
Luther,  the  suggestion  of  which  came  from  nominalistic  sources, 
was  that  the  human  body  of  Christ  is  inseparably  joined  with  the 
elements  in  the  Supper.  The  union  is  not  an  “  impanation,”  or 
inclusion  of  one  of  the  substances  with  the  other,  or  the  mixture  of 
the  two,  the  result  of  which  would  be  something  different  from 
both.  It  is  not  a  union  that  is  continued  after  the  administration 
of  the  sacrament.  But  the  union,  which  is  mysterious  in  its  nature, 
is  such  that  believers  and  disbelievers  alike,  who  receive  the  bread 
and  wine,  receive  simultaneously  the  body  and  blood.  The  entire 
Christ  is  received  by  each  communicant.  Luther  occasionally 
described  in  crass  terms  the  real  manducation  of  the  body  of 
Christ,  but  such  an  idea  of  a  “  capernaitic  ”  manducation  is  con¬ 
trary  to  his  more  sober  representation,  and  is  repudiated  by  the 
earlier  and  later  representatives  of  Lutheranism.  The  contention 

1  De  Providentia  Dei,  p.  1 13;  cf.  Schaff,  Ch.  Hist.  VII.  p.  92  sq. 

Exposit.  Chr.  bid.  XII.  (in  Niemeyer’s  Coll.  Confess. ,  etc.,  p.  61). 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


289 

of  Zwingli  was  that  in  the  Supper  Christ  is  present  in  “  the  con¬ 
templation  of  faith.”  The  Eucharist  is  a  memorial,  with  the  fur¬ 
ther  idea  that  it  is  a  pledge,  as  a  ring  is  a  pledge,  of  the  grace 
of  Christ.  The  chief  thought  in  connection  with  the  Supper  is 
that  of  a  memorial.  The  elements  are  merely  symbols. 

The  standing  objection  of  Zwingli  and  the  Zwinglians  to  the 
teaching  of  Luther  on  this  subject  was’  that  the  human  body  of 
Christ,  since  the  Ascension,  is  in  heaven  and  not  on  earth.  The 
answer  of  Luther  was  the  assertion  of  the  communication  of  the 
attributes  of  one  nature  to  another,  and  the  consequent  ubiquity 
of  the  human  nature.  Christ  is  at  the  right  hand  of  God,  which 
means  that  He  is  everywhere.  Wherever  Christ  is,  there  His 
humanity  is  present.  He  brought  forward  the  scholastic  distinc¬ 
tion  of  the  threefold  mode  of  presence,  the  local  or  circum¬ 
scriptive,  a  presence  in  one  place  and  not  elsewhere,  the  defini¬ 
tive,  and  the  repletive.  The  last  is  equivalent  to  ubiquity.  The 
second  means  that  one  is  present  whenever  he  wills  to  be.  The 
union  of  the  two  explains  the  presence  of  Christ  in  the  Lord’s 
Supper.  It  might  seem  strange  that  Luther  should  habitually 
stigmatize  the  Sacramentarians,  as  the  Zwinglians  were  called,  as 
visionaries  and  enthusiasts,  “  Schwarmer,”  since  from  his  point  of 
view  they  would  be  styled,  one  would  think,  frigid  rationalizers. 
But,  apart  from  the  consideration  that  Carlstadt  was  a  coryphaeus 
of  a  class  more  properly  styled  enthusiasts,  Luther’s  hostility  to 
the  Sacramentarians  was  rooted  in  the  feeling  that  they  were 
assailants  of  the  objective  reality  of  the  means  of  grace.  They 
were  introducing  a  species  of  subjectivism  in  the  apprehension  of 
the  Christian  religion.  He  resisted  everything  that  seemed  to 
him  to  threaten  the  objective  nature,  whether  of  the  Word  or  of 
the  sacraments.1  Just  as  the  truth  in  the  Word  enters  into  the  ear  of 
the  hearers,  good  or  bad,  so  is  Christ  in  the  sacramental  elements, 
whatever  the  belief  or  feelings  of  the  recipient,  and  the  recipi¬ 
ent  partakes  of  Christ. 

, There  is  not  room  here  for  a  detailed  record  of  the  series  of 
efforts  made  to  bring  the  two  parties  into  an  agreement,  or  at 
least  into  a  relation  of  mutual  toleration  and  fellowship.  The 
most  memorable  of  these  attempts  was  through  the  Conference  of 
Marburg  in  1529.  It  was  unsuccessful.  On  fourteen  Articles  they 
were  agreed,  but  on  the  question  whether  “  the  real  body  and 

1  See  my  History  of  the  Reformation ,  p.  1 5°- 
u 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


29O 

blood  of  Christ  are  present  in  the  bread  and  wine,”  they  differed, 
and  they  could  only  promise  “  to  cherish  Christian  charity  for  one 
another,  so  far  as  the  conscience  of  each  will  permit,”  and  to  pray 
for  the  enlightenment  of  the  Spirit.1  Luther  declined  to  extend 
the  hand  of  fellowship  to  Zwingli,  although  at  parting  the  contest¬ 
ants  on  both  sides  shook  hands  as  a  token  of  friendship.  At  the 
Diet  of  Augsburg  in  1530,  Zwingli  inserted  in  his  Ratio  Fidei  a 
clear  exposition  of  his  idea  of  the  sacraments  as  testimonies  or 
signs  of  divine  grace,  and  classifies  with  the  “  Papists,”  as  far  as 
this  subject  is  concerned,  “  those  who  look  back  to  the  fleshpots 
of  Egypt.”  2  Zwingli  was  no  rival  of  Luther  in  the  use  of  vituper¬ 
ative  language.  Luther’s  vocabulary  of  abusive  nicknames  and 
epithets  was  copious.  But  the  Swiss  leader  had  at  times  an 
exasperating  manner,  and  his  utterances  were  sometimes  in  keep¬ 
ing  with  it.  Luther  had  not  the  temper  of  a  peacemaker,  as 
Melanchthon  had  in  an  eminent  degree.  But  it  is  not  to  Luther’s 
discredit  that  he  had  no  relish  for  the  ambiguities  of  compromise ; 
and  Zwingli  was  not  the  man  to  veil  his  opinions  or  to  keep 
silence  under  assaults  upon  what  he  considered  the  truth.  Both 
men  were  true  to  their  convictions.  Zwingli  died  in  1531. 
“The  Wittenberg  Concord”  was  the  result  of  an  undertaking  to 
reconcile  the  discordant  groups  of  ministers  and  churches.  The 
most  prominent  intermediary  was  Martin  Bucer,  preacher  in 
Strassburg,  who  was  a  Zwinglian,  but  after  the  Marburg  Conference, 
in  which  he  took  part,  he  regarded  with  less  disfavor  the  Lutheran 
opinion.  He  was  not  inexpert  in  composing  formulas  as  little 
offensive  as  possible  to  either  party.  The  four  imperial  cities  of 
Southern  Germany  had  presented  at  Augsburg  a  confession  much 
more  moderate  in  its  terms  than  the  creed  of  Zwingli.  Later,  in 
1532,  they  had  consented  to  the  Augsburg  Confession.  After  a 
conference  in  Cassel,  in  1535,  between  Melanchthon  and  Bucer, 
there  met  in  the  following  year  at  Wittenberg  a  company  of  dis¬ 
tinguished  theologians  of  upper  Germany.  Luther  and  his  asso¬ 
ciates  agreed  with  them  in  the  adoption  of  a  statement  on  the 
points  in  dispute,  in  which  the  Lutheran  opinion  on  the  sacrament 
was  apparently  adopted,  while  Bucer’s  distinction  between  the 
“unworthy”  and  “disbelievers,”  which  Luther  allowed  to  stand 
in  the  document,  helped  the  representatives  of  the  cities  to 

1  See  SchafFs  narrative,  Ch.  Hist.  VII.  p.  646. 

2  See  Niemeyer,  Coll.  Conf.  p.  26  sq. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


291 


escape  from  a  real  and  full  assent  to  his  doctrine.  The  “  Con¬ 
cord  ”  was  accepted  by  their  constituents  in  upper  Germany,  but 
was  unacceptable  to  the  Swiss. 

There  were  two  subjects  on  which  the  opinions  of  Melanchthon 
came  to  differ  from  those  of  Luther.  This  dissent  was  gradual 
in  its  origin.  One  of  these  points  of  difference  had  respect  to 
human  agency  as  related  to  divine  agency  in  conversion.  The 
other  was  the  so  much  litigated  question  of  the  Real  Presence  of 
Christ  in  the  Lord’s  Supper.  For  a  long  time  Melanchthon  was 
fully  agreed  with  the  doctrine  of  Luther.  He  was  always  averse 
to  the  Zwinglian  theory.  As  long  as  Luther’s  view  was  the  only 
alternative  Protestant  explanation,  he  received  it ;  but  at  length, 
when  a  middle  theory  was  brought  forward,  which  retained  that 
which  he  practically  valued  in  the  sacrament,  he  altered  his 
opinion.  His  own  reflections,  the  influence  of  Bucer,  and  further 
study  of  the  Fathers,  to  which  he  was  led  by  a  writing  of  the 
learned  Zwinglian,  CEcolampadius,  moved  him  to  give  up  the 
idea  of  an  oral  manducation  of  the  elements,  and  a  reception  of 
the  body  and  blood  by  such  as  are  without  a  living  faith.  When 
the  middle  view  concerning  the  sacrament  was  developed  by 
Calvin,  and  brought  forward  by  him  in  a  guarded  way,  Melanch¬ 
thon  was  confirmed  in  his  altered  conviction.  Intercourse,  espe¬ 
cially  by  correspondence,  with  Calvin  was  not  without  a  marked 
effect.  Calvin,  while  he  rejected  the  doctrine  of  the  ubiquity  of 
the  body  of  Christ  and  its  objective  presence  in  and  under  the 
elements,  still  held  that  Christ  is  received  spiritually  by  the  believ¬ 
ing  partaker  of  them,  and  that,  through  the  Holy  Spirit,  even  the 
body  of  Christ  communicates  a  power  to  the  believing  recipient. 
A  central  idea  in  Calvin’s  doctrine  is  that  of  a  real  communion 
with  Christ  which  the  sacrament,  received  in  faith,  operates  to 
increase.  At  the  same  time,  there  is  received,  in  connection  with 
the  elements,  through  the  power  of  the  Spirit,  the  mysterious 
source  of  a  spiritual  body  to  appear  at  the  resurrection.  Melanch- 
thon’s  old  belief  was  shaken  as  early  as  the  Wittenberg  Concord 
of  1536.  The  change  is  indicated  in  the  amendment  of  the 
’  tenth  Article  of  the  Augsburg  Confession,  in  the  edition  of  it 
which  he  published  in  1540.  Melanchthon  believed  that  the 
points  of  difference  between  the  Lutheran  and  the  intermediate 
theory  were  not  essential,  and  that  the  controversy  was  both  need¬ 
less  and  mischievous  in  the  extreme.  This  is  expressed  by  him 


292 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


freely  in  his  confidential  letters  to  friends.1  Yet  he  so  deprecated 
contention,  that  he  could  not  be  moved  by  the  urgency  of  Calvin 
to  break  silence  and  avow  his  real  judgment  in  the  matter.  That 
he  approached  near  to  Calvin  on  this  subject  is  manifest  from  his 
correspondence.  When  it  is  remembered  how  Luther  abhorred 
everything  that  subtracted  an  iota  from  his  definitions  of  the  Real 
Presence,  and  how  in  his  later  years  his  health  was  broken  and 
his  increased  intolerance  of  dissent  was  aggravated  by  partisan 
supporters  of  a  temper  even  more  unsparing  than  his  own,  — • 
when  all  this  is  borne  in  mind,  in  connection  with  the  reserve  of 
Melanchthon,  and  his  withdrawal  within  himself,  out  of  natural 
timidity  and  dread  of  an  uproar,  it  is  not  strange  that  for  a  long 
period  their  relations  were  strained,  and  the  open  cordiality  of 
their  personal  intercourse  damped.  Rather  is  it  strange  that 
Luther  refrained  from  all  attacks  upon  Melanchthon,  and  that 
the  mutual  love  of  the  two  men,  once  so  closely  united,  was  never 
uprooted. 

The  Calvinists  made  prominent  the  points  of  agreement  between 
the  Lutheran  doctrine  and  their  own.  Their  opinion  spread  in  the 
southwest  of  Germany,  in  the  Palatinate,  and  in  other  places,  in¬ 
cluding  Wittenberg,  among  the  pupils  of  Melanchthon.  At  length 
the  Lutherans  were  awakened  to  a  clearer  perception  of  the  differ¬ 
ence  between  the  two  opinions,  and  were  roused  to  withstand  the 
progress  of  Calvinism.  Joachim  Westphal,  a  preacher  in  Hamburg, 
took  the  field,  to  whom  Calvin  replied.  The  Elector  Palatine, 
Frederic  III.,  adopted  Melanchthon’s  advice  to  stop  at  the  words 
of  the  Apostle  Paul  on  the  Sacrament  in  1  Cor.  x.  16.  In  1560, 
he  established  the  Reformed  Church  in  his  land.  In  1562,  the 
Heidelberg  Catechism  by  his  direction  was  framed  by  two  profess¬ 
ors  at  Heidelberg,  Ursinus  and  Olevianus.  In  1560,  in  the  midst 
of  these  scenes  of  strife,  Melanchthon  died,  not  unwilling  to  be 
delivered  from  the  “  fury  of  theologians,”  and  to  go  to  the  light 
where  he  could  comprehend  the  mysteries  which  he  had  not  been 
able  to  understand  on  earth. 

In  his  battle  with  Erasmus,  Luther  affirmed  in  almost  reckless 
language  the  impotence  of  the  human  will.  God’s  agency  was 

1  See  Schaff,  Ch.  Hist.  VII.  664  sq.,  VI.  656;  Fisher,  Hist,  of  the  Reforma¬ 
tion,  p.  160;  Hase,  Libri  Symbol,  p.  xvi.  See,  also,  Galle’s  Charakteristik 
Melanchthons,  etc.,  especially  the  Zweiter  Abschnitt.,  and  Thomasius,  DG. 
543  sq- 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


293 


asserted  to  be  the  universal  cause.  His  will  was  declared  to  be 
subject  to  no  law,  but  to  be  the  foundation  of  right.  Predestina¬ 
tion  was  declared  to  be  unconditional  and  to  include  as  its  objects 
the  lost  as  well  as  the  saved.  “  By  this  thunderbolt,”  he  said, 
“  free-will  is  laid  low  and  thoroughly  crushed.”  Melanchthon,  in 
this  point,  as  in  others,  was  in  accord  with  him.  But  from  about 
the  time  of  the  controversy  of  Luther  with  Erasmus,  Melanchthon 
began  to  part  with  this  opinion.  He  began  to  look  at  these  mat¬ 
ters  more  from  the  ethical  point  of  view,  and  was  concerned  to 
find  room  for  human  freedom  and  a  basis  for  human  responsibility. 
In  the  Augsburg  Confession  (VII.)  man’s  will  was  said  to  have 
“some  liberty  to  work  a  civil  righteousness,  and  to  choose  such 
things  as  reason  can  reach  to.”  In  successive  editions  of  the  Augs¬ 
burg  Confession,  the  Apology,  and  the  Loci ,  we  can  trace  the  steps 
which  he  took  to  the  clear  propounding  of  synergism ,  or  the 
doctrine  that  in  conversion  the  human  will  takes  a  part,  although 
it  be  a  minor  part,  along  with  the  Word  and  God’s  Spirit.  In  the 
adoption  of  these  new  views  he  was  not  molested  by  Luther. 
Luther  had,  however  inconsistently,  affirmed  with  all  emphasis  that 
God  from  eternity  desires  the  salvation  of  all  men,  and  that  if  they 
are  not  saved  it  is  because  they  spurn  his  earnest  offer.  That  salva¬ 
tion  is  by  divine  grace,  without  merit,  is  the  one  truth  which  was 
near  to  Luther’s  heart.  The  extravagant  propositions  which  reach 
the  limit  of  fatalism  were  taken  up  from  another  quarter  than  his 
own  religious  thoughts  and  experience,  and  used  to  batter  down 
the  doctrine  of  merit.  Hence,  although  to  the  last  the  book  on  the 
Servitude  of  the  Will  was  one  of  the  few  writings  of  his  compositions 
to  which  he  attached  much  value,  it  was  not  on  account  of  the  ex¬ 
treme  theory  of  the  will  which  was  advocated  in  it,  but  on  account 
of  the  doctrine  of  grace  of  which  it  served  as  a  weapon  of  defence. 

The  ethical  feeling  of  Melanchthon  and  the  fear  of  antinomian 
perversions  of  the  doctrine  of  gratuitous  justification,  led  him  to 
set  forth  views  respecting  the  obligations  of  the  law,  which  excited 
distrust  and  opposition.  In  the  edition  of  the  Loci  in  1535,  he 
affirms  “  the  necessity  of  good  works  for  eternal  life,”  adding,  how¬ 
ever,  that  they  necessarily  follow  reconciliation.  He  says,  more¬ 
over,  that  “  good  works  merit  material  and  spiritual  rewards.”  Such 
statements  he  always  explained  as  not  affecting  the  truth  of  the 
remission  of  sins  or  the  condition  of  faith  in  divine  mercy  through 
Christ. 


294 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


The  death  of  Luther  released  Melanchthon  from  the  almost  ser¬ 
vile  anxiety  under  which  he  had  long  suffered.  It  made  him  the 
head  of  the  Wittenberg  Faculty  and  the  principal  theological 
leader  among  Lutheran  Protestants.  But,  at  the  same  time,  it 
took  away  the  aegis  which  Luther  had  really  stretched  over  him, 
and  left  to  his  adversaries  a  better  prospect  in  their  antagonism 
to  him  and  his  teachings.  More  than  this,  it  took  away  the  re¬ 
straint  which  Luther’s  presence  had  excited  upon  the  tendency  in 
Melanchthon’s  own  mind  to  go  farther  than  was  meet  in  the 
direction  of  concessions  to  the  Roman  Catholics  and  of  measures 
of  pacification.  He  was  a  Humanist,  and  as  such  a  lover  of 
learning,  who  deserved  the  title  of  “  The  Preceptor  of  Germany.” 
By  nature  he  hated  extremes,  hated  angry  disputes  on  verbal 
distinctions,  prized  unity  and  peace.  He  was  not  personally 
estranged  from  Erasmus  on  account  of  Luther’s  heated  contest 
with  him.  He  had  the  courage  to  qualify  his  subscription  to  the 
Smalcald  Articles  by  adding,  in  the  face  of  Luther’s  statements 
in  this  creed,  that  if  the  Pope  would  allow  the  Gospel,  he  would, 
for  the  sake  of  peace,  concede  to  him  jure  humano  superiority  over 
bishops,  of  which  he  was  actually  possessed.  Such  were  the  traits 
of  Melanchthon,  that,  in  the  circumstances  of  the  times  after  the 
death  of  Luther,  in  connection  with  the  theological  parties  into 
which  the  Lutherans  divided,  he  must  inevitably  become  the 
occasion  of  division  and  a  target  of  assault.  A  condensed  notice 
of  these  controversies  is  here  in  place. 

1.  There  were  controversies  bearing  on  the  relation  of  morals 
to  religion.  In  1527,  John  Agricola  came  forward  with  the  denial 
that  the  preaching  of  the  law  should  precede  the  preaching  of  the 
Gospel.  Luther  stood  by  Melanchthon ;  and  ten  years  later,  when 
Agricola  contended  that  repentance  as  well  as  faith  must  proceed 
from  the  influence  of  the  Gospel  alone,  Luther  vigorously  opposed 
him.  In  1552,  George  Major  avowed  that  good  works  are  neces¬ 
sary  to  salvation,  not  meaning  that  they  are  meritorious,  or  intend¬ 
ing  to  deny  that  in  faith  they  originate.  Nicholas  von  Amsdorf 
met  Major  with  the  offensive  assertion  that  not  only  are  good 
works  not  necessary  to  salvation,  but  in  relation  to  that  end  are 
positively  harmful.  The  design  was  utterly  to  reject  the  idea  that 
the  law  has  any  relation  to  believers.  It  was  a  fanatical  proclama¬ 
tion  of  the  all-sufficiency  of  faith. 

2.  In  order  to  fill  out  what  he  considered  to  be  a  defect  in 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


295 


Melanchthon’s  limiting  of  the  office  of  justifying  faith  to  the  for¬ 
giveness  of  sin,  and  to  relieve  the  doctrine  of  merely  forensic 
justification  of  its  barrenness,  Andrew  Osiander  in  1552  brought 
forward  the  doctrine  of  the  actual  appropriation  by  the  believer  of 
the  righteousness  of  Christ,  who  is  received  in  faith  and  really 
imparts  His  own  essential,  divine  righteousness  to  the  soul.  Luther 
had  regarded  faith  as  the  reception  of  the  entire  Christ  as  the 
living  Saviour  and  the  source  of  inward  life.  Osiander  considered 
himself  to  be  an  expounder  of  Luther’s  ideas.  He  held  to  the 
expiatory  work  of  Christ,  as  the  ground  of  forgiveness,  but  the 
stress  was  laid  on  the  mystical  union  with  Christ,  and  the  actual 
partaking  of  His  divine  quality  of  righteousness.  But  Osiander 
was  resisted  not  only  by  Melanchthon,  on  the  ground  that  he  made 
forgiveness  of  small  account,  but  also  by  Matthias  Flacius  and 
other  strenuous  Lutherans.  After  Osiander’s  death  the  controversy 
was  long  continued. 

The  adiaphoristic  Majoristic  and  Osiandrian  controversies  were 
closely  related  to  the  preceding  differences.  They  were  connected 
with  the  Leipsic  Interim.  After  the  defeat  of  the  Protestants 
Melanchthon  and  theologians  in  sympathy  with  him,  in  1548,  lent 
their  countenance  and  help  to  Maurice  of  Saxony  in  the  framing 
of  the  Interim  for  the  ordering  of  religious  affairs  within  his 
domain.  The  concessions  to  Roman  Catholicism,  both  in  respect 
to  doctrinal  statements  and  as  to  ceremonies,  went  altogether 
beyond  a  reasonable  sacrifice  for  the  sake  of  peace  and  union. 
This  Melanchthon  himself  afterwards  frankly  admitted.  In  this 
dark  and  troublous  period,  the  strenuous  Lutherans,  such  as 
Flacius  and  Amsdorf,  in  their  antagonism  to  the  Interim,  did  not 
spare  Melanchthon,  who  was  held  responsible  for  its  obnoxious 
provisions.  They  constituted  the  “  Gnesio-Lutherans,”  as  they 
were  styled,  —  persistent  adversaries  of  Melanchthon’s  opinions. 
The  adiaphoristic  controversy  was  waged  on  the  question  whether 
the  Roman  Catholic  ceremonies  —  formerly  interdicted,  but  rec¬ 
ognized,  on  grounds  of  expediency,  in  the  Interim  —  were  or  were 
not  unlawful,  or  if  not  in  themselves  wrong,  were  not  made  so 
under  the  circumstances.  This  debate,  violent  on  the  part  of  the 
more  rigid  Lutherans,  ended  upon  the  overthrow  of  Charles  V.  by 
Maurice  and  the  Peace  of  Augsburg  ( 1 5  5  5 )  ?  w^en  the  question 
ceased  to  be  practical. 

The  Philippists,  as  the  followers  of  Melanchthon  were  called  by 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


296 

their  opponents,  were,  until  1574,  dominant  at  Wittenberg  and 
Leipsic.  The  rigid  Lutherans  had  their  stronghold  first  at  Mag¬ 
deburg,  and  then  at  Jena.  In  1555,  the  synergistic  controversy 
entered  upon  a  new  stadium  by  a  publication  of  Pfeffinger  of 
Jena,  which  was  followed,  after  an  interval  of  several  years,  by 
publications  on  the  other  side  by  Amsdorf  and  Flacius.  The  most 
prominent  champion  of  the  Philippists  was  Strigel,  Professor  at 
Jena.  He  maintained  that  will  in  the  natural  man  is  weakened  and 
crippled  so  that  it  is  incapable  of  originating  anything  spiritually 
good,  but  when  moved  upon  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  it  can  cooperate 
in  the  work  of  conversion.  This  ascription  of  a  concurrent  power 
to  the  will  met  with  great  opposition.  But  the  position  of  the 
champion  of  the  strict  Lutherans,  Flacius,  that  the  will  is  spiritually 
dead,  and  has  no  capacity  except  perpetually  to  resist  the  influ¬ 
ences  of  grace,  were  also  repugnant  to  the  more  moderate  class  of 
Strigel’s  opponents.  A  middle  class  then  arose,  of  which  Chem¬ 
nitz  and  Andrese  were  members,  who  strove  to  mediate  between 
the  two  extremes.  The  difference  centred  in  the  idea  of  conver¬ 
sion,  the  initial  step  in  the  Christian  life.  The  moderate  party 
attributed  the  concurrence  and  consent  of  the  creaturely  will, 
not  to  the  use  of  an  inherent  power,  but  rather  to  the  will  when 
healed  or  invigorated  by  a  prior  influence  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 
Flavius  stirred  up  a  general  dissent  when  he  advanced  the  doc¬ 
trine  that  original  sin  has  affected  the  very  substance  of  the  soul, 
a  proposition  presupposed  in  his  theory  of  the  will  as  being  dead 
so  far  as  holy  preferences  are  concerned.  In  order  to  bring  to 
an  end  the  contests  that  prevailed,  the  Form  of  Concord,  after 
years  of  labor  upon  it,  was  completed  in  1580.  The  theologians 
of  the  school  of  Melanchthon,  Chemnitz,  and  others,  refrained 
from  insisting  on  statements  which  they  would  have  preferred  to 
make.  The  result  of  all  the  conferences  and  negotiations  was 
the  creed  in  two  parts,  the  briefer  Epitome,  and  the  larger  Solid 
Repetition  and  Declaration.  The  Form  of  Concord  condemns 
the  Flavian  notion  about  Original  Sin.  It  asserts  (Art.  II.)  in 
the  strongest  possible  language  the  helplessness  of  the  human 
will.  Man’s  acceptance  of  the  Gospel  is  exclusively  the  effect  of 
grace.  Yet,  in  the  eleventh  Article,  it  is  declared  that  “God  is 
not  willing  that  any  should  perish,”  that  His  offers  of  grace  are  to 
all  men,  that  Christ  “  is  anxious  that  all  men  should  come  unto 
Him  and  permit  Him  to  help  them,”  that  the  reason  why  any  sin- 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


297 


ners  are  lost  is  that  they  wilfully  despise  God’s  grace,  “  close  their 
ears  and  harden  their  hearts,”  so  that  the  Holy  Ghost  cannot  do 
His  work  upon  them  and  within  them.  It  is  the  denial  that  grace 
is  irresistible.  Some  of  the  ablest  Lutheran  divines  grant  that  a 
path  of  reconciliation  between  these  two  Articles  is  difficult  to  be 
found. 


CHAPTER  III 


THE  THEOLOGY  OF  CALVIN 

Calvin  in  his  intellectual  qualities  differed  widely  from  Zwingli, 
but  he  gave  to  the  Swiss  or  Reformed  theology  its  mature  form, 
and  completed  a  work  which  his  forerunner  had  commenced. 
Nevertheless,  he  had  little  sympathy  with  the  personal  traits 
of  Zwingli,  and  Dorner  is  right  in  saying  that  there  was,  all 
things  considered,  more  affinity  between  him  and  Luther  and 
the  Lutheran  exposition  of  the  Gospel,  than  there  was  with 
Zwingli  and  with  the  Zwinglian  theology  taken  as  a  whole. 
The  religious  experience  of  Calvin  corresponded  essentially  to 
that  of  Luther.  Distress  of  conscience  and  a  sense  of  help¬ 
lessness  were  followed  by  peace  of  mind,  through  trust  in  the 
wholly  undeserved  grace  of  the  Gospel.1  The  first  edition  of 
his  Institutes  of  Theology  was  printed  in  Latin  at  Basle  in  1536. 
The  work  grew  in  compass  in  the  successive  editions,  without 
any  modification  of  its  doctrines.  From  its  form,  as  issued  in 
1559,  the  later  editions  have  been  printed.  It  is  rather  a  fervid 
discourse  than  a  dry,  scholastic  disquisition.  In  its  four  books  it 
follows  the  order  of  the  Apostles’  Creed,  as  did  Luther  in  the 
doctrinal  part  of  his  Catechisms.  The  continuity  of  teaching  in 
the  Church  was  thus  implied.  Calvin’s  genius  as  a  commentator 
fully  equals  his  capacity  as  a  dogmatic  teacher.  To  get  a  full  view 
of  his  thoughts  it  is  necessary  to  consult  his  observations  on 
special  passages  of  Scripture,  as  well  as  his  treatises ;  for  in  the 
former  we  meet  with  distinctions  and  qualifications  which  in  the 
latter  are  not  always  found. 

In  respect  to  the  relation  of  the  formal  principle,  the  authority 
of  the  Bible,  to  the  material  principle,  Justification  by  faith,  Calvin 

1  One  of  the  most  interesting  statements  of  Calvin  respecting  himself  is  in 
his  Letter  to  Sadolet. 


298 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


2  99 


stands  between  Luther  and  Zwingli.  He  makes  the  former  more 
dependent  on  the  latter  for  its  origin  than  Zwingli ;  yet  he  makes 
the  formal  principle  more  controlling  in  the  construction  of  doctrine 
than  Luther.  For  example,  he  holds  that  the  constitution  of  the 
Church  is  to  a  greater  extent  determined  by  the  Scriptures.  But 
when  it  comes  to  the  evidences  of  the  divine  origin  of  the  Bible, 
he  rejects  the  opinion  that  the  first  place  belongs  to  external  proofs, 
and  spurns  the  idea  that  for  our  conviction  on  this  subject  we 
depend  upon  the  authority  of  the  Church.  Our  conviction  on  this 
point  is  based  on  the  “  testimony  of  the  Holy  Spirit,”  the  testi¬ 
mony  within  us  of  the  same  Spirit  that  inspired  the  sacred  writers. 
The  Bible  by  its  power  and  elevation  speaks  clirectly  to  the  soul, 
but  speaks  with  convincing  effect  only  to  the  soul  which  has  been 
drawn  to  accept  Christ  with  a  living  faith.  On  the  subject  of  the 
canon  and  of  inspiration,  Calvin  does  not  (save  in  discarding  the 
apocrypha)  deviate  from  traditional  opinion  as  Luther  does.  Yet 
it  accords  with  his  manliness  as  an  interpreter  that  he  resorts  to 
no  petty  devices  to  escape  a  difficulty ;  for  example,  to  dispose  of 
minor  discrepancies.  The  “  different  phrases,”  ‘  coat  and  cloak  ’ 
in  Matt.  v.  40,  and  ‘  cloak  and  cbat  ’  in  Luke  vi.  29,  “  do  not 
alter  the  sense.”  Comparing  the  variation  of  Heb.  xi.  21  from 
Gen.  xlvii.  31,  he  remarks  that  in  this  matter  “  the  apostles 
have  not  been  so  very  scrupulous ;  in  substance  {in  re  ipsa )  there 
is  little  difference.”  How  ‘Jeremiah’  got  into  Matt,  xxvii.  9, 
instead  of  ‘Zachariah,’  he  does  not  know,  nor  will  he  worry  him¬ 
self  about  it.1  Like  Luther,  he  has  no  fancy  for  allegorical  inter¬ 
pretation. 

There  is  a  full  agreement  with  Luther  in  Calvin’s  description  of 
the  nature  and  function  of  faith.  It  brings  the  believer  into  union  # 
with  Christ  so  that  Christ  imparts  to  him  all  that  is  His.  We  are 
saved  by  the  imputation  of  His  righteousness,  not  on  the  ground  of 
anything,  not  even  faith,  in  ourselves.  And  faith  includes  in  it 
Assurance  — fthe  certitudo  salutis.  Still  Calvin  allows  for  the  im¬ 
perfection  of  faith,  for  the  struggle  with  remaining  sin,  and  the 
consequent  occasional  or  partial  chilling  of  the  believer’s  confidence. 
Justification,  the  remission  of  sins,  is  distinct  from  Sanctification, 
but  they  are  never  disjoined. 

Although  Calvin  is  not  less  sweeping  in  his  assertions  of  divine 
predestination  and  control  than  Luther,  certainly  than  Luther  in  his 


1  “  nec  anxie  laboro.” 


300 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


earlier  statements,  he  differs  from  the  Saxon  leader,  and  is  in 
accord  with  Zwingli,  in  placing  in  the  forefront  of  his  system  God 
and  His  universal  control.  Calvin  and  Calvinism  emphasize  not 
only  the  freedom,  the  unmerited  character,  of  grace,  but  equally 
the  sovereignty  of  God  in  the  bestowal  of  it.  The  idea  is  that 
apart  from  this  sovereignty  in  the  selection  of  the  subjects  of  it, 
grace  would  not  be  grace.  This  doctrine  of  God’s  sovereignty,  and 
the  use  made  of  it,  is  one  thing  that  differentiates  Calvinism  from 
Lutheranism,  and  increasingly  the  more  in  the  Lutheran  system 
election  retreats  into  the  background.  The  second  point  of  differ¬ 
ence  relates  to  the  Lord’s  Supper,  —  a  topic  which  has  already 
been  explained. 

The  peculiarity  of  Calvin’s  doctrine  of  predestination  is  that  it 
includes  in  it  the  decree  of  reprobation.  This  the  Lutheran  con¬ 
fessions  exclude.  According  to  Calvin,1  God  has  determined  by  an 
eternal  decree  “  what  He  would  have  to  become  of  every  individual 
of  mankind.”  Eternal  life  is  foreordained  for  some,  and  eternal 
damnation  for  others.  “  Every  one  is  created  for  one  or  the  other 
of  these  ends.”  God  has  once  for  all  determined  “  whom  He 
would  admit  to  salvation  and  whom  He  would  condemn  to  destruc¬ 
tion.”  2  Prescience  does  not  explain  the  hardening  of  heart,  which 
includes  an  intervention  of  God,  beyond  mere  foreknowledge.  It 
takes  place,  first,  by  the  withdrawal  of  God’s  Spirit,  and  secondly 
by  the  employment  of  Satan,  the  minister  of  His  wrath,  to  influence 
their  mind  and  their  efforts.3  To  inquire  into  the  reasons  of  the 
divine  will  is  idle  ;  for  there  is  nothing  “  greater  or  higher  than  the 
will  of  God.”  It  is  “  the  cause  of  everything  that  exists.”4 

Notwithstanding  these  assertions,  it  is  not  altogether  clear 
whether  Calvin  was  a  supralapsarian  or  an  infralapsarian.  These 
terms,  it  should  be  remarked,  did  not  come  into  vogue  until  a  later 
day.  The  distinction  pertains  to  the  relation  of  predestination  to 
the  fall  of  man  —  to  the  first  sin.  This  was  held  by  extreme  Cal¬ 
vinists  to  be  the  object  of  an  efficient  decree,  while  the  more  mod¬ 
erate  Calvinists  made  the  decree  relate  to  the  fall,  and  to  be  only 
permissive.  The  supralapsarians,  when  they  worked  out  their  phi¬ 
losophy,  made  the  final  cause  or  end  of  the  divine  administration  to 
be  the  manifestation  of  God’s  attributes,  —  of  His  justice  in  punish¬ 
ing,  and  of  His  mercy  in  saving.  To  accomplish  this  end  creation  is 

1  Inst .  III.  xxi.  5.  s  Ibid.  II.  iv.  3. 

2  Ibid.  III.  xxi.  7.  4  Ibid.  III.  xxiii.  2. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


301 


decreed,  the  fall  after  it,  the  election  of  part  of  mankind  as  objects  of 
mercy,  of  another  part  as  objects  of  punitive  righteousness.  This 
is  the  order  of  the  divine  purposes.  This  philosophy  is  crowned 
by  the  assumption  that  the  privilege  of  the  divine  government 
needs  no  other  defence  than  the  bare  fact  of  the  divine  decree,  the 
will  of  God  being  the  foundation,  as  well  as  the  evidence  or  cri¬ 
terion,  of  righteousness.  The  infralapsarians,  on  the  contrary, 
made  election  to  be  from  those  fallen  by  their  own  act  into  sin 
and  condemnation,  an  act  of  theirs  in  no  degree  necessitated  by 
causes  referable  to  God’s  power. 

If  we  had  nothing  to  guide  us  but  the  Institutes ,  we  should  say 
without  hesitation  that  Calvin  was  a  supralapsarian.  He  asserts 
that  the  foreknowledge  of  God  is  dependent  upon  His  decrees ;  P 
that  God  not  only  foresaw  “  the  fall  of  the  first  man  and  in  him  the 
ruin  of  his  posterity,  but  arranged  all  by  the  determination  of  His 
own  will.”  1  It  is  absurd  to  think,  he  says,  that  God  did  not  choose 
what  should  be  the  condition  of  the  principal  of  His  creatures. 
The  first  man  fell  because  God  judged  that  it  was  expedient  that 
he  should  fall.  Why  not,  he  argues,  object  to  the  decree  that  his 
posterity  should  be  included  in  perdition  by  his  fall?  Yet  such 
is  the  fact.  Of  the  composite  purpose,  including  the  sin  of  Adam 
and  the  ruin  of  his  posterity,  he  says  :  “  It  is  a  terrible  decree, 

I  acknowledge.”2  There  is  more  in  the  Institutes  of  the  same  pur¬ 
port.  But  elsewhere  in  the  Agreement  by  the  Genoese  Pastors , 
he  speaks  more  guardedly,  and  does  not  overstep  the  picture  of 
Augustine,  from  whom  he  quotes  with  approbation.  He  asserts 
merely  a  permissive  decree  —  a  volitive  permission  —  in  the  case 
of  the  first  sin.  Moreover,  Calvin  explicitly  asserts  that  for  every 
decree  of  the  Almighty,  however  mysterious  it  might  be  to  us, 
there  is  a  good  and  sufficient  reason ; 3  that  is  to  say,  he  founds  will 
upon  right,  not  right  upon  will.  It  is  probable  that  we  have 
here  his  opinion,  literally  stated,  while  in  the  passage  quoted 
above,  which  appears  to  imply  that  God’s  will  is  the  fountain,  as 
well  as  the  evidence  of  right,  we  have  an  over-statement,  due  to 
the  fervor  of  his  polemic. 

Calvin’s  language  on  the  decree  relating  to  sin  is  intimately 
connected  with  his  conviction  that  sin  exists  and  is  evil,  yet 

1  Inst.  III.  xxiii.  7.  To  say  that  God  determined  to  treat  Adam  as  he 
might  deserve  is  a  “  frigidum  commentum.” 

2  Ibid.  III.  xxiii.  7.  3  Opera  (Amst.  ed.),  Vol.  VIII.  p.  638. 


302 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


because  it  exists  under  God’s  government  it  must  be  good  that  it 
should  exist.1  It  would  not  be  permitted  to  be  were  it  not  desir¬ 
able  that  it  should  be.  Hence  the  existence  of  evil,  whenever 
and  wherever  it  exists,  is  in  accord  with  the  divine  will.  It  is 
in  accord  with  a  mysterious,  inevitable  appointment  of  God’s  will, 
notwithstanding  His  declared  commandment  against  it.  God  does 
not  permit  sin  to  be  nolens ,  but  volens.  In  this  particular,  Calvin 
reproduces  the  doctrine  of  Augustine  and  Aquinas,  that  the  system 
as  a  whole  is  better  with  evil  in  it  than  without  evil  in  it.  As  to 
the  two  wills  in  God,  the  decretive  and  preceptive,  the  former  is 
always  said  by  Calvin  to  be  involved  in  deep  mystery.  On  this 
subject  nothing,  he  declares,  is  “  better  for  us  than  a  learned  igno¬ 
rance.”  2  lln  explaining  the  offers  of  the  Gospel,  he,  like  Augustin- 
ians  before  him,  makes  them  refer  to  nations,  and  to  signify  that  the 
elect  are  not  confined  to  any  one  of  them.  When  he  comes  to  the 
lament  of  Jesus  over  Jerusalem  (Matt,  xxiii.  37),  to  the  expression  of 
the  Saviour’s  will  to  gather  to  Himself  the  people  who  had  willed  not 
to  come  to  Him,  he  faces  the  difficulty,  and  affirms  that  the  duality 
of  the  divine  will  is  merely  relative  to  our  understanding,  or  is  an- 
thropopathic.  Somehow  “  between  the  velle  of  God  and  their 
[the  people’s]  nolle  there  is  an  emphatic  opposition.” 

As  was  the  case  with  the  other  Reformers,  Calvin  was  not  actu¬ 
ated  in  his  zeal  for  the  doctrine  of  predestination  by  speculative 
reasons.  He  was  impelled  by  its  supposed  necessity  if  the 
truth  of  salvation  by  grace  alone  is  to  be  upheld.  A  second  rea¬ 
son  for  clinging  to  it  was  the  dependence  upon  it  of  the  security 
and  comfort  of  believers.  For  Calvin  differed  from  the  Lutherans 
as  well  as  from  Augustine,  in  holding  that  all  true  believers  are  of 
the  number  of  the  elect,  since  all  are  preserved  from  falling. 

In  Calvin,  as  in  the  Lutheran  Reformers,  in  treating  of  original 
sin,  the  imputation  of  Adam’s  sin  is  left  in  the  background.  It  is 
the  innate  sin,  derived  by  inheritance  from  Adam,  which  is  the 
primary  source  of  our  condemnation.  The  Augustinian  unity  of 
the  race,  and  the  consequent  responsibility  of  the  race  for  the 
first  transgression,  as  far  as  it  was  generic,  is  the  underlying  con¬ 
ception.  Two  propositions  are  constantly  asserted  by  Calvin. 
One  is  that  we  are  not  condemned  or  punished  for  Adam’s  sin, 
apart  from  our  own  inborn  depravity,  which  we  derive  from  him. 

1  Consens.  Genev.  (Niemeyer,  p.  230). 

2  Opera  (Amst.  ed.),  Vol.  III.  p.  641. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


303 


The  sin  for  which  we  are  condemned  is  our  own  sin,  namely,  the 
corruption  of  nature  within  us  at  birth,  and  were  it  not  for  this  we 
should  not  be  condemned.  The  other  proposition  is  that  our 
nature  was  vitiated  in  Adam,  and  in  that  condition  we  received  it. 
On  commenting  on  Rom.  v.  12,  he  says  : 

“  Observe  the  order  here,  for  Paul  says  that  sin  preceded ;  that  from  it 
death  followed.  For  there  are  some  who  contend  that  we  are  so  ruined  by 
the  sin  of  Adam,  as  if  we  perished  by  no  iniquity  {culpa')  of  our  own ,  in  the 
sense  that  he  only  as  it  zuere  sinned  for  us.  But  the  Apostle  expressly  affirms 
that  sin  is  propagated  to  all  who  suffer  its  punishment.  And  he  urges  this 
especially  when  he  assigns  the  reason  shortly  after,  why  all  the  posterity  of 
Adam  are  subject  to  the  dominion  of  death.  The  reason  is,  he  says,  that  all 
have  sinned.  That  sinning  of  which  he  speaks  is,  being  corrupted  and 
vitiated.  For  that  natural  depravity  which  we  bring  from  our  mother’s  womb, 
although  it  does  not  at  once  bring  forth  its  fruits,  yet  it  is  sin  before  the  Lord 
and  deserves  the  penalty.” 

To  the  same  effect  are  his  remarks  on  Eph.  ii.  3,  where  he 
says  :  “  Sin  is  inherent  in  us,  because  God  does  not  condemn  the 
innocent.”  “  God  is  not  angry  with  innocent  men,  but  with  sin.”  « 
In  the  chapter  on  original  sin  in  the  Institutes,  we  read  : 

“These  two  things  are  to  be  distinctly  observed;  first,  that  being  thus  vitiated 
and  perverse  in  all  the  parts  of  our  nature,  we  are,  on  account  of  this  corrup¬ 
tion,  deservedly  held  as  condemned  and  convicted  before  God,  to  whom 
nothing  is  acceptable  but  justice,  innocence,  and  purity;  for  this  is  not  liability 
to  punishment  for  another's  crime;  for  when  it  is  said  that  by  this  sin  of 
Adam  we  become  exposed  to  the  judgment  of  God,  it  is  not  to  be  understood 
as  if,  being  ourselves  innocent  and  undeserving  of  punishment,  we  had  to  bear 
the  sin  {< culpam )  of  another;  but  because  by  his  transgression  we  all  incur 
a  curse,  he  is  said  to  have  involved  us  in  guilt  {obstrinxisse).  Nevertheless, 
not  only  has  punishment  passed  from  him  upon  us,  but  pollution  instilled  from 
him  is  inherent  in  us,  to  which  punishment  is  justly  due.  Wherefore  Augus¬ 
tine,  although  he  often  calls  it  another’s  sin  (that  he  may  the  more  clearly 
show  that  it  is  derived  to  us  by  propagation),  at  the  same  time  asserts  it  to 
belong  to  each  individual.  .  .  .  And  so  also  infants  themselves,  as  they  bring 
their  condemnation  with  them  from  their  mother’s  womb,  are  exposed  to 
punishment,  not  for  another’s  sin  but  for  their  own.  For  though  they  have 
not  yet  produced  the  fruits  of  their  iniquity,  they  have  still  the  seed  inclosed 
in  them;  even  their  whole  nature  is  as  it  were  a  seed  of  sin,  and  cannot 
be  otherwise  than  odious  and  abominable  to  God.  Whence  it  follows  that 
it  is  properly  accounted  sin  in  the  eye  of  God,  because  there  could  not  be  guilt 
( reatus )  without  fault  {culpa).  The  other  thing  to  be  remarked  is  that  this 
depravity  never  ceases  in  us,  but  is  perpetually  producing  new  fruits,  etc.”  1 


1  Inst.  I.  i.  8. 


304 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


It  is  clear  that,  in  Calvin’s  view,  the  first  thing  imputed  us  as 
the  ground  of  punishment  is  our  own  sinful  nature. 

Calvin  makes  the  same  distinction  as  the  Lutherans  made  be¬ 
tween  the  visible  and  the  invisible  Church.1  The  one  comprises 
all  the  elect.  The  other  includes  the  multitude  of  professed  be¬ 
lievers,  who  receive  the  two  sacraments,  the  word  of  the  Lord,  and 
the  ministry  who  are  appointed  of  Christ  to  preach  it.  He  did 
not  deny  that  the  Christian  societies  acknowledging  the  Pope  are 
“  churches  of  Christ.”  His  warfare,  he  asserted  in  his  letter  to 
Sadolet,  was  with  the  Pontiff  and  his  pseudo-bishops,  by  whom 
the  truth  was  perverted  and  the  kingdom  of  Christ  brought  almost 
to  destruction.  If  the  Pope  could  prove  his  succession  from 
Peter,  obedience  would  not  be  due  to  him  unless  he  maintains  his 
fidelity  to  Christ.  His  contest  was  like  that  of  the  prophets  and 
apostles  with  the  churches  of  their  time.  He  indignantly  denies 
that  he  has  withdrawn  from  the  Church.2  The  prelates  of  the  day 
cannot  prove  their  vocation  by  any  laws,  human  or  divine.  The 
characteristics  of  a  well-ordered  church  are  the  preaching  of 
sound  doctrine  and  the  pious  administration  of  the  sacraments. 
The  servants  of  God  have  never  been  obstructed  by  the  empty  title 
of  ‘  Church,’  when  it  was  used  to  uphold  the  reign  of  impiety.  His 
devotion  to  the  true  merits  of  the  Church  he  affirms  in  the  most 
solemn  manner.3  Schism,  in  the  proper  meaning  of  the  term,  he 
utterly  condemns.  In  arguing  against  the  Anabaptists  he  insists 
upon  the  criminality  of  separating  from  the  Church  even  when 
corruption  and  sin  are  prevalent  among  its  members.  There 
is  no  excuse  for  deserting  the  Church  where  the  word  of  God 
is  preached  and  the  sacraments  administered.4 5  Ift  his  protest 
against  these  schismatics  we  might  imagine  ourselves  to  be 
hearing  the  voice  of  an  enemy  of  Protestantism  in  every  form. 
But  Calvin’s  deference  to  authority  considered  by  him  legitimate 
was  profound.  The  same  is  true  of  his  attachment  to  unity,  and 
abhorrence  of  unlawful  mutiny.6  His  reverence  for  the  Church 
had  led  him  to  hesitate  about  becoming  a  Protestant.  He  con- 

1  Inst.  IV.  i.  io. 

2  Works  (Amst.  ed.),  Vol.  VIII.  See  Schaff,  Ch.  Hist.  VII.  pp.  404,  405. 

3  On  the  Necessity  of  Reforming  the  Church  (1545)  :  full  citations  in  Schaff, 
Vol.  VII.  452  sq. 

4  Inst.  IV.  i.  19. 

5  Ibid.  I.  iv.  10;  cf.  IV.  i.  10. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


305 


vinced  himself  that  to  renounce  the  prelacy  was  not  to  renounce 
the  Church.  “  A  departure  from  the  Church  would  be  a  renuncia¬ 
tion  of  God  and  of  Christ.”  The  original  officers  in  the  Church 
were  partly  permanent  and  partly  not.  The  officers  ordained  to 
be  permanent  are  the  pastors  and  elders.  They  are  not  to  be 
chosen  by  the  congregation.  In  the  polity  established  at  Geneva 
Calvin  did  not  fully  realize  his  theory  on  the  subject.  In  this 
particular  he  was  like  Luther. 

Upon  the  general  idea  and  intent  of  the  sacraments,  Calvin 
thought  as  did  the  Lutheran  Reformers.1  A  sacrament  is  an  out¬ 
ward  sign  which  is  at  the  same  time  a  seal  or  confirmation  of  the 
promises  of  grace  and  also  a  testimony  before  all,  the  Creator  and 
His  creatures,  of  our  piety  towards  Him.  There  is  no  sacrament 
without  an  antecedent  promise  to  which  it  is  subjoined.  The 
word  —  that  is,  the  teaching  of  the  Gospel  as  to  its  significance  — 
is  a  part  of  the  sacrament.  Augustine  is  right  in  calling  a  sacra¬ 
ment  a  “  visible  word,”  it  being  a  mirror  of  the  grace  contained  in 
the  promises.  It  is  for  the  increase  of  faith ;  yet  it  confers  no 
benefit  on  a  wicked  person.  And  its  validity  is  not  contingent 
on  the  intention  of  the  administrator.  Its  office  is  precisely  like 
that  of  the  truth  of  the  Gospel.2  It  announces,  shows,  ratifies  the 
things  given  of  God.  To  give  it  efficacy  the  Spirit  must  attend  it. 
It  has  no  efficacy  ex  opere  operato. 

Baptism  is  a  token  of  purification.3  It  is  like  a  legal  instrument 
attesting  the  forgiveness  of  the  believer.  It  is  not  for  the  past 
alone,  but  for  the  future ;  for  the  believer  is  ever  to  remember  it 
as  the  pledge  of  his  pardon  and  as  designed  to  reassure  him  of  it. 
It  reminds  us  perpetually  of  our  new  life  in  Christ  and  of  the 
sanctifying  grace  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  It  testifies  that  being  united 
to  Him  we  shall  be  partakers  of  all  His  benefits. 

In  the  Institutes  Calvin  makes  an  elaborate  argument  in  behalf 
of  Infant  Baptism.  He  will  not  say  that  infants  have  the  same 
faith,  or  knowledge  of  faith,  that  adult  believers  have.  The 
principal  warrant  for  baptizing  them  is  the  covenant,  the  promise 
of  God  to  the  offspring  of  believers  —  to  believers  and  their  seed. 
The  blessing  of  little  children  by  Christ  is  another  basis  for  it. 
Those  who  brought  little  children  to  Him  had  the  spirit  of  disci¬ 
ples.  As  to  the  need  of  infants  of  the  blessings  denoted  by  the 
rite,  “  they  bring  their  own  condemnation  into  the  world  with 

1  Inst.  IV.  xiv.  I,  2.  2  Ibid.  IV.  xiv.  17.  _  3  Ibid.  IV.  xv.  15. 


X 


3°6 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


them/’  their  whole  nature  being,  “  as  it  were,  a  seed  of  sin,”  and 
therefore  “  abominable  to  God.” 1  The  first  benefit  possible  to  be 
imparted  to  infants  is  their  ingrafting  into  the  Church.  The  next 
benefit  which  they  are  capable  of  receiving,  which  is  figured  in 
the  sacrament,  is  their  regeneration.  The  precise  nature  of  this 
benefit  he  does  not  profess  to  be  able  to  explain.  Neither  in 
their  case,  nor  in  the  case  of  adults,  is  there  any  virtue  in  the 
water  itself.  Whatever  is  done,  is  done  by  the  Spirit.  Where,  by 
reason  of  age,  there  is  not  yet  any  capacity  of  learning,  God  has  His 
different  degrees  of  regenerating  those  whom  He  has  adopted.2 
Yet  nowhere  in  this  prolonged  discussion  does  Calvin  say  that  all 
those  baptized  children  of  Christian  parents  who  die  in  infancy  are 
saved.  “  If  any  of  those  who  are  objects  of  divine  election  ”  depart 
from  life,  after  baptism,  and  before  they  attain  to  years  of  dis¬ 
cretion,  “  the  Lord  renovates  them  by  the  power  of  His  Spirit, 
incomprehensible  to  us,  in  such  a  manner  as  He  alone  foresees  to 
be  necessary.”3  Farther  than  this  he  does  not  go.4  Respect¬ 
ing  infants  who  cannot  repent  and  believe,  as  to  the  advantage  of 
baptism  in  the  case  of  such  of  them  as  are  not  of  the  elect, 
Calvin  encountered  a  difficulty  similar  to  that  which  Augustine 
failed  to  solve  in  dealing  with  the  relation  of  the  sacraments  to 
predestination. 

Calvin’s  opinion  concerning  the  Lord’s  Supper  has  been  already 
stated.  Prior  to  his  establishment  in  Geneva,  his  aim  had  been,  in 
writing  on  the  sacrament,  to  cultivate  peace  with  the  Lutherans 
by  emphasizing  the  points  of  agreement  with  them.  Hence  at 
the  outset  the  Zwinglians  were  somewhat  suspicious  of  him. 
Zwingli,  however,  in  his  latter  days,  had  made  room  in  his  theory 
for  a  presence  of  Christ  in  connection  with  the  Supper,  and  had 
made  more  of  the  Supper  as  a  pledge  of  Christ’s  love.  Bullinger 
and  his  associates  did  the  same.  Consequently  the  Consensus 
Tigurinus,  in  1549,  was  formed  as  a  symbol  of  union.  But  in 
proportion  as  Calvin  brought  forward  his  points  of  agreement 
with  Zwingli,  he  lost  the  measure  of  sympathy  with  which  the 
Lutherans  had  regarded  him.  In  the  Institutes,  he  asserts  that 

1  Inst.  IV.  xv.  10.  2  Ibid.  IV.  xvi.  31.  3  Ibid.  IV.  xvi.  21. 

4  Occasionally  he  appears  to  embrace  all.  Inst.  IV.  xv.  20,  xvi.  9,  31. 
The  sum  of  his  doctrine  is  that  between  baptism  and  circumcision,  there  is  “a 
complete  agreement  in  the  internal  mystery,  the  promises,  the  use,  and  the 
efficacy.”  IV.  xvi.  i6. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


30; 


the  only  difference  with  the  Lutherans  on  the  subject  of  the 
presence  of  Christ  in  the  sacrament  relates  to  the  manner  of  His 
presence.1  “  They  suppose  Christ  not  to  be  present,  unless  He 
descends  to  us ;  as  though  we  cannot  equally  enjoy  His  presence, 
if  He  elevates  us  to  himself.  The  only  question  between  us,  there¬ 
fore,  respects  the  manner  of  this  presence.”  “  I  doubt  not  that  He 
[Christ]  truly  presents  them  [the  body  and  blood]  and  I  receive 
them.”1  By  the  “  energy  of  His  Spirit”  He  accomplishes  that 
which  He  promises.2  Yet  it  is  evident  that  our  being  lifted  up  to 
Christ  is  figuratively  meant,  since  of  the  difficulty  from  the  dis¬ 
tance  of  Christ,  Calvin  says  that  he  cuts  the  knot  in  this  way, 
that  Christ,  although  he  does  not  change  His  place,  by  His  power 
descends  to  us.3  Faith  is  confirmed,  and  the  seed  of  an  immor¬ 
tal  body,  like  that  of  Christ,  is  received  by  the  believing  com¬ 
municant. 

Calvin’s  expositions  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  are  characterized 
by  great  sobriety  and  clearness.  He  is  no  stickler  for  terms,  pro¬ 
vided  the  central  elements  of  the  doctrine  are  retained.  He  was 
even,  much  to  his  chagrin,  accused  of  Arianism  by  one  Caroli.4 
He  will  not  contend,  he  says,  for  mere  words.5  He  would  be 
glad  if  such  terms  as  ‘Trinity’  and  ‘persons’  were  buried  out  of 
sight,  if  only  it  were  agreed  that  the  Father,  Son,  and  Spirit  are 
one  God,  and  yet  are  distinguished  by  some  peculiar  property. 
Since  the  original  cause — principium  et  origo  —  is  in  the  Father,* 
when  the  Father,  Son,  and  Spirit  are  mentioned  together,  the 
name  ‘  God  ’  is  specially  appropriate  to  the  Father.6  Thus  the 
order  of  the  persons  is  preserved,  while  nothing  is  subtracted  from 

1  Inst.  IV.  xvii.  31.  2  Ibid.  IV.  xvii.  10. 

'  3  Secunda  Defensio  (against  Westphal),  C.  R.  37,  72.  That  this  elevation 
to  Christ  is  figuratively  meant  is  made  clear.  See  Kahnis,  Lehre  v.  heilig 
Abendm.,  S.  140,  with  the  comment  of  Jul.  Muller,  Wissenschaftl.  Abhandl 
p.  432.  See  also,  Loofs,  DG.,  p.  435.  The  connection  between  the  body  of 
Christ  and  the  believing  communicant  is  always  said  by  Calvin  to  be  effected 
by  the  Holy  Spirit.  But  it  is  a  real  connection  and  reception. 

4  For  the  circumstances,  see  Henry,  Das  Leben  Calvins ,  vol.  I.,  p.  178  sq., 
Schaff,  Ch.  Hist.,  vol.  VII.  p.  632.  Calvin  said  of  the  Athanasian  symbol  that 
no  legitimate  church  —  legitima  ecclesia  —  would  ever  have  approved  of  it. 
The  subject  is  one  on  which  “we  ought  to  philosophize  with  great  sobriety 
and  moderation.”*  For  the  essential  orthodox  doctrine  as  against  Arians  and 
Sabellians  he  was  strenuous. 

5  Inst.  I.  xiii.  5.  6  Ibid.  I.  xiii.  20. 

*  Ibid.  I.  xiii.  21. 


308 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


the  deity  of  the  Son  and  the  Spirit.  He  is  only  concerned  to 
steer  clear  of  Arianism  on  the  one  hand,  and  Sabellianism  on  the 
other. 

It  is  accordant  with  Calvin’s  general  mode  of  thought  that  while 
the  Incarnation  is  set  forth  as  having  for  its  prime  end  the  re¬ 
demption  of  man,  yet  this  is  not  said  to  be  the  exclusive  ground 
of  its  necessity.  He  expressly  says  that  if  man  had  remained  up¬ 
right,  yet  he  is  so  far  below  the  Creator  that  he  could  not,  without 
a  mediator,  have  attained  to  union  with  Him.1  He  strenuously 
insists  on  the  full  reality  of  the  human  nature  of  Christ,  as  not 
affected  by  its  union  with  the  divine. 

In  one  paragraph  of  the  Institutes,  Calvin  says  that  the  merit  of 
Christ  by  which  we  are  saved  depends  merely  on  the  good  pleasure 
of  God,  which  appointed  this  method  of  salvation  for  us.2  This  is 
interpreted  by  Thomasius  as  implying  that  the  work  of  Christ  was 
not  necessary,  and  as  thus  suggesting  the  same  Scotist  idea  that  the 
will  of  God  is  the  foundation  of  merit.3  It  is  admitted,  however, 
that  such  a  view  is  not  carried  out  by  Calvin.  But  the  real  sense 
of  the  passage  is  simply  that  the  mission  of  the  Saviour  springs 
from  the  grace  of  God,  and  from  no  constraint  to  which  He  was 
subject  to  provide  a  way  of  salvation.  Calvin  is  earnest  in  ascribing 
the  gift  of  a  Saviour  to  the  love  of  God,  although  “  in  a  certain  in¬ 
effable  manner,  at  the  same  time  that  He  loved  us  He  was  never¬ 
theless  angry  with  us  until  He  was  reconciled  in  Christ.”4  God 
Himself  “  removes  every  obstacle  in  the  way  of  His  love  towards 
us.”  The  obstacle  lay  in  God’s  justice  and  righteous  condemnation 
of  sin.  Christ  has  “  satisfied  for  our  sins ;  He  has  sustained  the 
punishment  due  to  us  ;  He  has  appeased  God  by  His  obedience.”5 
Christ  has  so  united  himself  to  us  that  what  is  ours  becomes  His, 
and  vice  versa .  Like  Luther,  his  mind  dwells  on  this  union.  He 
expresses  it  in  the  phrase  :  “  Our  sins  were  transferred  to  Him 
by  imputation.”  The  main  thing  in  the  atoning  work  of  Christ  is 
His  death.  But  “  there  is  no  exclusion  of  the  work  of  His  obedience 
which  He  performed  in  this  life.”  “  Indeed,  His  voluntary  sub¬ 
mission  is  the  principal  circumstance  even  in  His  death.”  The 
sacrifice  must  be  freely  offered.  By  “  the  whole  course  of  His 

1  Inst.  II.  xii.  i;  cf.  Dorner,  Person  Christi ,  II.  719,  and  Baur,  DG. 
III.  179. 

2  Inst.  II.  1. 

0  DG.  Vol.  II.  p.  641. 


4  Inst.  II.  xvi.  2. 

5  Ibid.  3. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


309 


obedience  ”  He  has  achieved  our  salvation.  The  distinction 
between  an  active  and  a  passive  obedience  is  not  expressed. 

Calvin  denies  the  descent  of  Christ  to  the  under-world  (Hades). 
The  only  meaning  that  can  be  accepted  in  such  a  statement,  he 
affirms,  is  that  on  the  cross  Christ,  when  He  felt  himself  forsaken 
of  God,  experienced  in  His  own  soul  the  pains  of  the  lost.  Yet  He 
was  free  from  guilt,  and  God  had  no  feeling  towards  Him  but  love. 


CHAPTER  IV 


RISE  AND  PROGRESS  OF  PROTESTANT  THEOLOGY  IN  ENGLAND 

The  Church  of  England,  from  the  time  of  the  framing  of  its 
formularies  under  Edward  VI.,  was  justly  considered  to  belong  to 
the  “  Reformed  ”  division  of  the  Protestant  churches.  On  the 
great  subject  of  contention,  the  Lord’s  Supper,  it  expressly  rejected 
the  Lutheran  opinion,  and  preferred  an  opinion  accordant  with 
that  of  Calvin.  It  was  the  influence  of  Luther’s  writings  on  young 
men  in  the  universities  that  began  the  work  of  doctrinal  reforma¬ 
tion.  As  far  as  the  Protestant  faith  was  espoused,  it  was  first  in 
the  Lutheran  form.  When  Cranmer  gave  up  transubstantiation, 
he  exchanged  this  opinion  for  that  of  the  Saxon  Reformers,  and 
condemned  the  doctrine  of  Zwingli.  For  defending  the  Roman 
doctrine  of  the  sacraments  against  Luther,  Henry  VIII.  had  re¬ 
ceived  from  the  Pope  the  title  of  Defender  of  the  Faith.  His 
divorce  and  his  renunciation  of  the  Pope’s  authority  were  a  long 
step  towards  a  recognition  of  the  exclusive  authority  of  the  Script¬ 
ures.  In  1536,  the  ten  Articles,  which  were  adopted  by  convo¬ 
cation  and  sanctioned  by  the  king,  made  the  Bible  and  the  three 
ancient  creeds  the  authoritative  standard  of  teaching.  The  Ar¬ 
ticle  on  Justification  rejects  human  merit,  but  connects  with  this 
denial  an  assertion  of  the  necessity  of  works  to  follow  Justifica¬ 
tion.  It  is  an  attempt  to  unite  Lutheran  and  Roman  Catholic 
tenets.  As  to  the  Real  Presence,  it  is  affirmed  in  language  which 
a  Lutheran  could  have  accepted.  There  is  a  Purgatory,  but  the 
Pope  cannot  deliver  souls  from  it.  There  are  cautions  against 
the  abuses  connected  with  confession,  invocation  of  saints,  and 
the  use  of  images  in  worship.  In  the  discussion  which  pre¬ 
ceded  this  compromise,  Cranmer  was  on  the  progressive  side. 
The  Protestant  parts  of  the  Articles  were  largely  drawn  from  the 
Apology  for  the  Augsburg  Confession  and  other  writings  of  Me- 

310 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


31 1 

lanchthon.1  Among  other  features,  the  limitation  of  the  number 
of  sacraments  to  three  —  Penance  being  the  third  —  excited  much 
disaffection,  especially  in  the  North,  where  the  Roman  side  had 
great  strength.  The  creed  fell  into  disuse  on  the  publication,  in 
1 5 3 7,  °f  the  “  Bishops’  Book,”  as  it  was  popularly  called, —  The 
Institution  of  a  Christian  Man.  This,  too,  was  the  fruit  of  a 
compromise.  It  was  framed  by  a  commission  sitting  at  Lambeth. 
It  was  decidedly  more  Lutheran  than  the  ten  Articles.  It  was  to 
a  large  extent  an  expansion  of  Luther’s  catechisms,  but  Cranmer’s 
contributions  in  it  were  in  his  best  vein.  The  sacraments  were 
said  to  be  seven,  but  a  sharp  distinction  was  drawn  between  the 
three  and  the  remaining  four.  The  sympathy  between  the  Eng¬ 
lish  and  the  German  Reformers  was  manifested  in  various  ways, 
and  was  only  restrained  by  the  force  of  the  king’s  will.  The 
power  of  the  Smalcald  League  had  its  influence  in  moving  Henry 
to  seek  the  friendship  of  the  German  princes.  In  1535,  envoys 
were  sent  by  him  to  Germany  to  negotiate  with  them,  with  a  view 
to  a  religious  agreement  and  a  political  alliance.  These  proceed¬ 
ings  were  frustrated,  —  partly,  it  is  thought,  by  the  agency  of 
Gardiner.  The  reactionary  movement  of  Henry  and  the  execu¬ 
tion  of  Anne  Boleyn,  in  1536,  broke  them  off  for  a  time  alto¬ 
gether.  In  1538,  these  negotiations  were  resumed.  Henry  had 
a  liking  for  Melanchthon,  and  was  quite  desirous  that  he  should 
come  to  England.  A  Lutheran  embassy,  which  Melanchthon  was 
not  able  to  join,  came  to  London  to  confer  with  a  committee  of 
bishops  and  doctors,  which  was  appointed  by  the  king.  As  to 
propositions  respecting  doctrine,  they  arrived  at  an  agreement ; 
but  Henry  steadily  refused  to  permit  the  cup  to  be  given  to  the 
laity,  to  give  up  propitiatory  masses,  or  to  allow  the  clergy  to 
marry.  Among  papers  belonging  to  Cranmer,  there  was  found 
by  Dr.  Jenkyn  a  manuscript  containing  in  Latin  thirteen  Articles, 
on  the  unity  of  God,  original  sin,  and  other  doctrinal  topics.  It 
is  judged  to  be  the  statement  of  the  Articles  drawn  up  at  the 
Conference  to  serve  as  a  basis  of  union  with  the  Germans.  They 
are  derived  in  the  main  from  the  Augsburg  Confession.  While 
they  have  this  connection  with  the  past,  they  appear  to  be  the 
groundwork  of  the  Anglican  Articles  at  present  in  use.2  In  1539, 

1  See  Jacobs,  The  Lutheran  Movement  in  England  during  the  Reigns  of 
Henry  VIII.  and  Edward  VI  (1890),  c.  VI. 

2  See  Hardwick,  History  of  the  Articles ,  p.  74. 


312 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


the  negotiations  with  the  Germans  were  continued.  They  refused 
to  send  theologians,  but  an  embassy  of  civilians  came  to  London. 
The  effort  proved  abortive.  Gardiner  and  the  hierarchical  party 
were  now  in  the  ascendant.  The  six  Articles  were  enacted  “  for 
abolishing  diversity  of  opinions  in  religion.”  Whoever  denied 
transubstantiation  was  to  be  burned  at  the  stake.  The  needless¬ 
ness  of  communion  in  both  kinds,  the  celibacy  of  the  clergy,  the 
necessity  of  private  masses  and  of  auricular  confession,  were 
decreed.  The  penalty  of  an  attack  on  either  of  these  last  articles 
was  death  as  a  felon,  without  benefit  of  clergy.  Expressions  of 
dissent  from  them  were  to  be  punished  according  to  their  form 
and  degree,  by  imprisonment,  confiscation  of  goods,  and  death. 
Cranmer  bowed  to  the  storm.  There  was  in  his  character  a 
remarkable  mixture  of  compliance  with  behests  which  it  was  im¬ 
possible  for  him  to  withstand,  with  an  unyielding  persistence  in 
the  pursuit  of  the  end  which  he  had  at  heart, —  reform  in  doc¬ 
trine  as  well  as  in  things  external.  Further  endeavors  of  Henry 
to  frame  an  alliance  with  the  Germans  failed  from  their  resolute 
refusal  to  take  a  step  without  his  acceptance  of  the  Augsburg 
Confession.  One  more  doctrinal  publication  was  issued  under 
the  auspices  of  Henry  VIII.  It  was  a  revision  of  The  Institu¬ 
tion  of  a  Christian  Mail  and  was  issued  in  1543  under  the  title, 
“Necessary  Doctrine  and  Erudition  for  any  Christian.”  Annota¬ 
tions  by  Cranmer  and  a  few  by  the  king  himself  were  embodied 
in  it.1  It  was  approved  by  Convocation. 

With  the  accession  of  Edward  VI.  in  1547,  Cranmer  and  the 
doctrinal  Protestants  were  left  free  to  carry  out  their  ideas.  Up 
to  this  time  Cranmer  had  continued  to  his  adhesion  to  the 
Lutheran  doctrine.  In  1538,  he  tried  to  induce  Lambert,  who 
held  the  Zwinglian  opinion,  to  renounce  it.  Lambert  refused  and 
was  burned  at  the  stake.  In  1548,  Cranmer  published  a  catechism. 
It  was  little  more  than  a  translation  of  a  Lutheran  catechism  which 
had  been  rendered  into  Latin  at  Nuremberg  by  Justus  Jonas,  the 
intimate  friend  of  Luther.2  This  was  the  period  of  the  Smalcaldic 
war  and  of  the  Interim  in  Germany.  The  hands  of  Cranmer  and 
Ridley  were  strengthened  by  theologians  from  the  Continent. 
Peter  Martyr  and  Ochino  were  made  professors  at  Oxford  in  1547, 
and  Bucer  and  Fagius  were  called  to  Cambridge  in  1549.  At  a 

1  See  Hardwick,  p.  65. 

2  See  Fisher,  Hist,  of  the  Reformation ,  p.  341. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


313 


Disputation  held  in  London,  in  1548,  Cranmer  declared  himself  a 
believer  in  the  Reformed  doctrine  of  the  sacrament  and  argued 
against  the  Lutheran  doctrine  of  the  ubiquity  of  Christ’s  body. 
In  this  change,  he  says  himself,  Ridley’s  influence  had  great 
weight  with  him.  His  words  are  :  “  Dr.  Ridley  did  confer  with  me, 
and  by  sundry  persuasions  and  authorities  of  doctors,  drew  me 
quite  from  my  opinion.”  1  We  can  fix  the  date  of  this  conversion. 
On  August  1  st,  Traheran  writes  to  Bullinger  that  Cranmer  is  on  the 
Lutheran  side?2  The  same  thing  is  said  in  letters  from  others  to 
Bullinger  as  late  as  October  29th.3  On  September  28th,  Traheran 
reports  that  Cranmer  has  come  over  to  the  opposite  opinion.4  On 
December  31st,  it  is  said  that  he  had  “most  openly,  firmly,  and 
learnedly  ”  maintained  Bullinger’s  doctrine.  In  Cranmer’s  treatise 
on  the  sacrament  and  in  his  rejoinder  to  the  reply  of  Gardiner,  he 
advocates  distinctly  and  emphatically  the  opinion  of  which  Calvin 
and  Bucer  were  the  expositors.5  The  forty-two  Articles  of  Religion 
were  adopted  in  1552.  In  Article  XXVIII.  (on  the  Lord’s  Sup¬ 
per)  there  is  a  denial  of  the  doctrine  of  “  the  reall  and  bodilie 
presence,  as  thei  terme  it,  of  Christe’s  flesh  and  bloude,  in  the 
sacramente  of  the  Lorde’s  Supper.”  In  the  Elizabethan  revision  of 
the  Articles,  by  which  they  are  reduced  in  number  to  thirty-nine, 
the  paragraph  thus  expressly  condemning  the  Lutheran  doctrine  (in¬ 
cluding  the  ubiquitarian  opinion)  is  left  out,  but  the  Calvinistic 
opinion  is  still  explicitly  stated.  The  twenty-ninth  of  the  thirty- 
nine  Articles,  “  of  the  wicked  which  eat  not  the  body  of  Christ  in 
the  use  of  the  Lord’s  Supper,”  was  confirmed  by  the  Church  in 
convocation  (and  by  the  Act  of  Uniformity  in  1662),  but  is  not 
in  the  list  authorized  by  the  13th  of  Elizabeth,  where  the  Articles 
are  only  thirty-eight  in  number.  This  most  Protestant  of  all  the 
Articles  “  was  confirmed  by  the  Parliament  of  Charles  II.,  but 
not  by  the  Act  which  first  imposed  the  Articles,  and  which  had 
for  its  object  the  admission  of  Presbyterian  orders”  —  that  is,  to 

1  Jenkyn’s  Cranmer  (. Examination ),  IV.  97. 

2  Original  Letters  relative  to  the  English  Refor?nation,  I.  232. 

3  Ibid.  II.  381,  643. 

4  Ibid.  322,  323.  See  also  Hooper’s  statement,  Ibid.  I.  73.  Traheran 
attributes  Cranmer’s  change  of  belief  to  the  influence  of  John  a  Lasco,  who 
had  been  himself  a  Lutheran. 

5  Cranmer  says  of  the  doctrine  of  Bucer  (with  which  he  agreed)  respecting 
the  Real  Presence:  “Bucer  dissenteth  in  nothing  from  (Ecolampadius  and 
Zwinglius.”  Treatises  on  the  Lord's  Supper  (Cox’s  ed.),  p.  225. 


3H 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


meet  the  case  of  ministers  ordained  abroad.1  In  the  first  Prayer 
Book  of  Edward  VI.,  in  the  Communion  Service  are  the  words 
“The  Body  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  which  was  given  for  thee, 
preserve  thy  body  and  soul  unto  everlasting  life.”  In  the  second 
Prayer  Book  of  Edward,  this  clause  disappears  and  substituted 
for  it  are  the  words  :  “  Take  and  eat  this  in  remembrance  that 
Christ  died  for  thee,  and  feed  on  them  in  thy  heart  with  faith  and 
thanksgiving.”  The  Swiss  influence  is  here  apparent.  In  the 
Prayer  Book  of  Elizabeth,  the  two  clauses  are  brought  together 
and  are  still  so  connected.2 

There  has  been  much  discussion  of  the  question  whether  Article 
XVII.  (“  Of  Predestination  and  Election  ”)  is  or  is  not  “  Calvinis- 
tic.”  If  the  meaning  of  the  question  is  whether,  according  to  the 
Article,  predestination  is  unconditional  or  is  conditioned  on  fore¬ 
knowledge,  in  the  later  (Arminian)  sense,  the  answer  must  be  that 
it  is  unconditional.  It  is  a  decree  by  “  the  counsel  of  God  secret 
to  us  ”  —  which  implies  the  distinction  between  His  secretive  and 
preceptive  will.  It  relates  to  those  “  chosen  in  Christ  out  of 
mankind,”  “as  vessels  made  to  honor.”  They  are  called  “ac¬ 
cording  to  God’s  purpose  by  His  Spirit,”  “through  grace  obey,” 
are  justified  and  adopted.  The  caution  against  looking  over  “  the 
sentence  of  God’s  predestination,”  a  doctrine  “  secret  and  pleas¬ 
ant  to  godly  persons,”  would  be  quite  out  of  place  if  conditional 
predestination  were  referred  to.  To  speak  of  the  Article,  however, 
as  “  Calvinistic,”  meaning  that  its  doctrine  was  learned  from  Cal¬ 
vin,  would  be  to  say  too  much,  although  Calvin’s  influence  even 
then  was  strongly  felt  in  England.  The  seventeenth  Article  asserts 
the  common  doctrine  of  the  Reformers  —  the  later  views  of  Me- 
lanchthon  excepted.  It  stops  short  of  Augustine’s  and  Calvin’s 
teaching  in  that  reprobation  is  left  out.  That  is  to  say,  it  is  an 
expression  of  moderate  Calvinism,  or  rather  of  an  opinion  which 

1  See  Stanley’s  Christian  Institutions,  pp.  109,  no. 

2  Ibid.  pp.  110-112.  Respecting  the  additions  to  the  Catechism,  in  the 
time  of  James  1.,  see  Stanley,  p.  no.  The  Body  and  Blood  “are  verily  and 
indeed  taken  and  received  by  the  faithful  in  the  Lord’s  Supper.”  The  Decla¬ 
ration  added  to  the  Communion  Office  in  Edward’s  Prayer  Book,  omitted  in 
Elizabeth’s  time,  excludes,  as  restored  in  1661,  the  adoration  of  “  any  corporal 
presence  of  Christ’s  natural  flesh  and  blood.”  It  originally  read,  “  the  Real 
and  Bodily,  the  Real  and  Essential  Presence.”  A  “  real  and  essential  Presence  ” 
of  the  same  is,  therefore,  not  condemned.  Ibid.  p.  111.  See,  also,  Blunt’s 
Annotated  Book  of  Common  Prayer,  p.  199. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


315 


Cranmer  and  his  associates  held  in  common  with  Calvin.  When 
Arminianism  was  beginning  to  spread,  the  “  Lambeth  Articles  ” 
were  drawn  up  as  a  protest  against  it.  But  the  rigid  Calvinism  of 
these  Articles,  in  their  original  forms,  was  decidedly  softened  by 
the  bishops  and  other  theologians  who  revised  them.  They  were 
composed  by  Whitaker,  a  stout  Calvinist.  But  in  the  revised  form 
the  perseverance  of  all  believers  is  exchanged  for  the  perseverance 
of  “the  elect,”  so  that  room  is  left  open  for  the  Augustinian  view. 
There  were  other  changes  of  phraseology  tending  to  mitigate  the 
rigidness  of  the  language  asserting  predestination.  And  the  Lam¬ 
beth  Articles  were  never  incorporated  into  the  Anglican  prescribed 
creed. 

The  definition  of  the  Church  (Art.  XIX.)  and  the  assertion  of 
the  fallibility  of  General  Councils  (Art.  XXL)  agree  with  the  ordi¬ 
nary  Protestant  doctrine.  In  the  Articles  nothing  is  said  of  Epis¬ 
copacy.  It  was  not  a  subject  of  contention  among  the  Reformers 
anywhere.  On  the  one  hand,  Luther,  Melanchthon,  and  Calvin 
have  no  objection  to  an  Episcopacy  existing  jure  humano.  Epis¬ 
copacy  in  England  was  no  barrier  to  ecclesiastical  fellowship  with 
the  Protestant  churches  on  the  Continent.  Cranmer  distinctly 
asserted  the  parity  of  bishops  and  presbyters,  and  that  bishops 
need  no  special  consecration.  There  is  no  good  ground  for  the 
opinion  that  he  changed  his  mind  on  this  subject.  Passages 
from  Cranmer’s  Catechism  which  have  been  quoted  in  support  of 
this  assumption  were  taken  by  him  from  the  Lutheran  Catechism 
of  Justus  Jonas,  of  which  mention  has  been  made.1  Cranmer  in 
his  last  days  was  writing  to  the  Continental  Reformers  with  the 
intent  to  bring  together  a  general  meeting  to  frame  a  consensus 
doctrine.  To  “  unchurch  ”  the  Protestant  bodies  was  a  thought 
that  never  entered  into  his  mind.  To  Calvin  he  urges  that  har¬ 
mony  of  doctrine  will  tend  “to  unite  the  Churches  of  GodC 
“  The  Church  of  God  ”  —  he  means  the  same  churches  —  “  has 
been  injured,”  he  says,  “  by  divisions  and  varieties  of  opinion 
respecting  the  sacrament  of  unity.”  Of  the  same  tenor  is  his 
letter  to  Bullinger.  To  Melanchthon  he  expresses  the  same  de¬ 
sire  for  an  agreement  in  the  formulating  of  doctrine  among  those 
“  in  whose  churches  the  doctrine  of  the  Gospel  has  been  restored 
and  purified.”  Nothing  is  said  in  this  correspondence  about 
polity.  Differences  in  this  respect  were  not  thought  essential. 

1  See  Jacobs,  The  Lutheran  Movement  in  England,  p.  323. 


3 1 6 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


The  one  subject  on  which  there  was  discord  that  occasioned 
anxiety  was  the  Lord’s  Supper.  After  the  accession  of  Elizabeth 
and  the  return  of  the  exiles,  most  of  whom  had  sojourned  with 
the  Swiss,  the  fraternal  fellowship  with  the  Reformed  Churches 
remained  unbroken.  As  late  as  near  the  end  of  Elizabeth’s  reign, 
Hooker  recognizes  the  validity  of  the  ordination  practised  in  the 
foreign  Protestant  churches,  albeit  he  considers  it  not  conformed 
to  the  Apostolic  model.  Ministers  having  no  other  than  Presby¬ 
terian  ordination,  on  coming  into  England,  were  admitted  to  liv¬ 
ings  on  the  basis  of  it.  Even  as  late  as  Lord  Bacon  wrote  his 
“  Advertisement  ”  concerning  controversies  in  the  Church  of  Eng¬ 
land,  he  refers  to  the  denial  that  such  persons  are  “  lawful  minis¬ 
ters  ”  as  a  novel  and  extremely  censurable  proceeding  of  “  some 
indiscreet  persons.”  Those  ministers  thus  spoken  against  he 
describes  as  “  some  of  our  men,”  “  ordained  in  foreign  parts.” 
The  contention  that  the  Episcopal  polity  exists  jure  divino,  and 
is,  therefore,  essential  to  the  being  of  a  church,  sprung  up  in  con¬ 
sequence  of  the  conflict  with  the  Presbyterians  who  made  a  like 
assertion  in  behalf  of  their  system.  Such  was  the  contention  of 
Cartwright,  the  champion  of  the  Presbyterian  polity.  Elizabeth 
was  herself  a  Lutheran,  but  in  her  reign  Calvin’s  personal  influence 
was  dominant  among  the  clergy,  and  Calvinism  was  long  a  syn¬ 
onym  of  orthodoxy.  Hooker  compares  Calvin’s  sway  to  the 
authority  of  Peter  Lombard  in  the  flourishing  period  of  Scholasti¬ 
cism.  He  deprecates  this  almost  absolute  sway,  although  he  lauds 
Calvin’s  Institutes  and  Commentaries,  and  says  of  Calvin  that  he 
was  the  greatest  man  whom  the  French  Church  —  meaning  the 
Protestant  Church  —  has  produced.  The  Calvinistic  doctrine  of 
the  Lord’s  Supper  was  the  prevailing  doctrine,  accepted  almost 
without  dissent  by  churchmen.  “  The  real  presence  of  Christ’s 
body,”  wrote  Hooker,  “  is  not  in  the  sacrament  but  in  the  worthy 
receiver.” 


% 


V 


CHAPTER  V 


SECTS  IN  THE  WAKE  OF  THE  REFORMATION - THE  SOCINIAN  SYSTEM 

The  sects  which  sprang  up  in  the  wake  of  the  Reformation  had 
their  origin  chiefly  in  the  preexisting  tendencies  and  opinions 
which  appear  in  the  later  portion  of  the  Middle  Ages.  The 
trumpet  of  Luther  woke  into  vigorous  life  all  forms  of  disaffection 
with  the  existing  order  of  things  in  Church  and  State.  Real  or 
imagined  defects  in  the  systems  of  the  Reformers  called  out 
opposition  and  dissent,  and  attempts  at  organization  on  a  different 
basis.  More  radical  movements  broke  out  in  different  directions. 
The  steadfast  adherence  of  the  Protestant  leaders  to  the  objective 
means  of  grace,  the  Bible  and  the  sacraments,  provoked  dissent  in 
the  form  of  Mysticism.  Their  conservatism  in  matters  pertaining 
to  civil  and  ecclesiastical  institutions  excited  a  widespread  revolt, 
varying  in  its  types.  Side  by  side  with  their  unshaken  confidence 
in  the  fundamental  principles  of  the  ancient,  pre-scholastic  creeds 
there  arose  as  a  concomitant  a  more  far-reaching  skepticism 
which  did  not  spare  the  earlier,  oecumenical  creeds.  This  devel¬ 
opment  was  the  natural  fruit  of  the  seed  sown  in  the  period  of  the 
Renaissance. 

One  of  the  most  noteworthy  phenomena  on  the  mystical  side 
was  the  rise  of  the  Schwenkfeldians,  the  disciples  of  a  Silesian 
nobleman,  Caspar  Schwenkfeld,  who  died  in  1561.  For  a  time 
he  stood  in  a  friendly  personal  relation  to  Luther,  but  came  out 
in  partial  opposition  to  his  teaching.  He  was  probably  somewhat 
influenced  by  the  reading  of  Tauler  and  other  Mystics.  Luther 
and  his  followers,  he  held,  made  too  much  of  salvation  as  an 
objective  institute.  They  were  fettered  to  the  external  Scriptures, 
in  the  room  of  the  divine  Word  —  the  word  of  the  Spirit  —  within 
the  soul.  What  man  needs  is  the  indwelling  of  God.  This  was  not 
attained  by  the  first  creation,  even  if  sin  is  left  out  of  the  account. 

317 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


318 

This  new,  immediate  fellowship  with  God  is  gained  through 
Christ,  in  whom  the  divine  presence  and  illumination  are  manifest. 
Christ  is  truly  human,  but  His  humanity,  owing  to  His  birth  from 
the  Virgin  through  the  Spirit,  is  susceptible  of  a  reception  of 
God  and  a  close,  albeit  progressive,  union  with  Him.  Through 
this  union  in  the  glorified  Christ,  the  creaturely  element  vanishes. 
God  and  man  are  now  one.  Christ  imparts  to  believers  His 
divine  nature.  This  He  does  in  the  Lord’s  Supper,  where  the 
bread  is  the  symbol  of  the  true  bread  of  the  soul,  which  is  Christ 
himself.  Schwenkfeld  did  not  reject  the  doctrine  of  the  death 
of  Christ,  which  effaces  guilt ;  but  this  was  only  the  stepping- 
stone  to  the  higher  life  which  Christ  makes  the  possession  of  His 
followers  through  a  real,  spiritual  communication  of  it.  The  true 
believer  can  live  without  sin.  Infant  baptism  he  did  not  favor. 
Schwenkfeld  was  a  man  of  learning  and  piety.  His  followers 
were  not  numerous.  In  1734  a  number  of  them  emigrated  to 
Pennsylvania. 

The  parties  known  by  the  name  of  Anabaptists  embraced  large 
numbers  of  adherents.  This  movement  is  one  of  much  historical 
importance.  The  efforts  to  bring  to  pass  revolutionary  changes 
of  a  social  and  political  nature  is  one  of  its  main  characteristics. 
It  was  only  to  a  part,  however,  that  the  wild  and  destructive 
fanaticism  which  belonged  to  many  can  be  imputed.  There 
were  drawn  into  the  movement  the  mass  of  oppressed  and  muti¬ 
nous  peasants  whose  insurrection  and  defeat  form  a  dark  page 
in  the  records  of  this  period.  ‘  Anabaptists  ’  is  a  word  meaning 
‘  re-baptizers.’  As  a  rule,  the  sects  bearing  this  name  were  hostile 
to  infant  baptism  and  baptized  anew  such  as  had  received  baptism 
in  infancy.  There  had  been  opposition  to  infant  baptism  among 
a  part  of  the  Waldenses  and  among  the  Bohemian  brethren  —  the 
unitas  fratrum.  It  had  been  opposed,  also,  by  Peter  of  Bruges 
and  Henry  of  Clugny.  Yet  this  designation  of  Anabaptists  does 
not  bring  out  what  was  really  the  central  principle  of  the  sects  to 
whom  it  was  applied.  They  insisted  that  the  Church  must  be 
composed  exclusively  of  the  regenerate,  and  that  the  rule  of  the 
civil  authority  over  it  has  no  rightful  place.  The  substitution  of 
a  kingdom  of  the  saints  was  the  war-cry  of  some ;  notably  of 
Thomas  Miinzer,  the  prophet  of  Zwickau,  who  was  beheaded  by 
the  magistrates  in  the  Peasant  War.  Mtinzer,  it  is  worthy  of 
remark,  was  acquainted  with  the  writings  of  Suso,  Tauler,  and 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


319 


other  Mystics.  He  pronounced  infant  baptism  unscriptural,  but 
did  not  give  it  up.  Storch,  who  was  an  associate  of  Mtinzer  at 
Zwickau,  introduced  the  chiliastic  theory,  which  prevailed  exten¬ 
sively  among  the  Anabaptists. 

Quite  different  in  spirit  from  Miinzer  were  the  Anabaptists  in 
Switzerland,  such  as  Hubmaier,  and  such  as  Grebel,  Blaurock,  and 
others  who  organized  a  separate  church  at  Zurich,  which  refused 
to  be  governed  in  ecclesiastical  matters  by  the  city,  and  discarded 
infant  baptism.  On  this  last  point,  Zwingli  had  been  for  a  while  of 
a  like  opinion.  Grebel  and  his  associates  were  devout  enthusi¬ 
asts,  but  they  were  believed  to  aim  at  the  overthrow  of  the 
Magistracy,  and  their  movement  was  quelled,  not  without  cruel 
persecution.  It  must  be  said  of  Grebel  that  while  he  did  not 
approve  of  rebellion,  he  preached  in  a  district  where  the  peasants 
rose  in  armed  revolt,  and  thus  exposed  himself  to  the  suspicion  of 
sympathizing  with  fanatical  schemes  of  sedition.  Itinerant  mis¬ 
sionaries  of  the  sect  diffused  Anabaptist  opinions  of  the  pacific 
type  far  and  wide  in  South  Germany.  Among  them  Chiliasts 
were  active  and  influential.  Some  of  the  Anabaptist  leaders, 
Denck  and  Hetzer  among  them,  adopted  a  mystical  form  of  anti- 
trinitarian  doctrine.  An  attempt  was  made  at  Munster  to  set  up 
a  theocracy  (1532-35),  but  the  town  was  captured  and  the  tyranni¬ 
cal  leaders  suffered  a  cruel  death.  The  third  and  fourth  decades  of 
the  sixteenth  century  were  a  period  in  which  “  Anabaptism  spread 
like  a  burning  fever  through  all  Germany.”  It  was  not  strange  that 
such  events  as  the  Munster  tragedy  should  give  rise  to  a  general 
crusade  against  all  who  were  identified  with  the  Anabaptist  cause, 
—  a  merciless  crusade,  because  there  was  little  discrimination 
between  the  innocent  and  the  guilty.  In  the  Netherlands,  after 
about  1537,  the  anti-psedobaptists  were  organized  in  peaceful 
communities,  free  from  violence  and  fanaticism.  The  leader  in 
this  work  of  organization  was  Menno  Simons.  Included  in  this 
new  body  were  many  in  the  regions  adjacent  to  the  Netherlands. 
The  Mennonites  discarded  the  use  of  weapons,  oaths  and  every  sort 
of  revenge,  and  would  hold  no  office  in  the  state.  They  became 
divided,  as  to  discipline,  into  a  stricter  and  more  lenient  party. 
Later  they  were  influenced  doctrinally  by  the  Socinians.  Ana¬ 
baptist  congregations  were  formed  at  Norwich  and  other  places 
in  England  by  emigrants  from  the  Low  Countries.  The  practise 
of  immersion  was  not  in  vogue  at  first  among  the  Anabaptists.  It 


320 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


was  adopted,  it  is  thought,  after  a  time,  by  Grebel  and  his  com¬ 
panions  in  Switzerland.  In  1605,  Rev.  John  Smyth,  an  English¬ 
man,  separated  from  the  Independent  Church  in  Amsterdam 
and  rebaptized  himself,  there  being  no  other  to  perform  that 
service  for  him.  Whether  he  baptized  himself  by  immersion 
or  not,  and  when  this  mode  of  baptism  began  among  the  Bap¬ 
tists  in  England,  are  still  subjects  of  controversy. 

The  rise  and  spread  of  anti-trinitarian  opinions,  especially  the 
development  of  Socinianism,  constitute  an  important  chapter  in 
the  early  history  of  Protestantism.  The  Reformers,  while  they 
subjected  the  Scholastic  theology  to  a  sifting  scrutiny,  planted 
themselves  on  an  oecumenical  basis  —  the  creeds  of  the  ancient 
Church.  On  this  ground  they  stood  in  company  with  their 
Roman  Catholic  adversaries.  This  position  was  not  due  mainly 
to  the  power  of  tradition  and  a  veneration  for  the  Church  of  the 
early  centuries.  Their  religious  life  was  interwoven  with  the  con¬ 
ceptions  of  God,  of  Christ,  and  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  which  are 
embodied  in  the  ancient  formularies.  The  anti-trinitarians,  who 
were  generally  Italians  and  imbued  with  the  spirit  of  the  Italian 
Renaissance,  felt  no  such  restraint.  They  took  the  same  attitude 
in  relation  to  the  oecumenical  faith  as  towards  the  systems  of  the 
Scholastic  age.  It  is  true  of  Socinianism,  as  of  like  sporadic 
movements  preceding  it,  that  it  exhibits  the  combined  effect  of 
the  Nominalism  of  the  later  Schoolmen  and  of  the  rationalistic 
drift  of  the  contemporary  Italian  culture.  Among  the  Italian  Protest- ' 
ants,  who  sought  for  a  refuge  north  of  the  Alps,  principally  in  Geneva 
and  other  cities,  were  cultured  persons,  such  as  Camillo  Renato, 
Blandrata,  Gentilis,  and  as  Ochino,  who  in  the  latter  part  of  his 
life,  agreed  with  the  others  just  named  in  the  adoption  of  Unita¬ 
rian  opinions.  Lselius  Socinus  and  his  nephew,  Faustus,  were  of 
the  same  class.  But  prior  to  Faustus  Socinus  the  most  able  and 
distinguished  of  the  opponents  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  was 
a  Spaniard  by  birth,  Michael  Servetus.  His  theology  was  in  no 
small  degree  connected  with  his  studies  and  speculations  in  natural 
science.  In  his  “  Errors  of  the  Trinity  ”  and  subsequently  in  his 
“  Restitution  of  Christianity,”  which  included  the  substance  of  the 
former  work,  he  expounded  the  system  which  his  acute  and  rest¬ 
less  intellect  had  wrought  out.  The  doctrine  of  an  immanent 
Trinity  is  rejected.  God  is,  in  every  sense,  an  indivisible  essence. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


321 


For  personal  differences  there  are  substituted  eternal  self-mani¬ 
festations.  The  Logos  is  impersonal,  the  image  of  the  world,  ever 
present  to  God,  of  which  the  idea  of  Christ  is  the  centre.  The  real¬ 
izing  of  this  idea  in  a  human  person  is  the  self-revelation  of  God  in 
time.  SerVetus  holds  to  the  miraculous  birth  of  Christ ;  but  his 
humanity  is  a  divine  substance,  fitted  for  the  incorporation  of  the 
Logos,  and  so  for  the  manifestation  of  the  Father.  A  Pantheistic 
leaven  pervades  the  whole  system  of  Servetus.  Next  to  the  error  of 
the  Trinity  the  other  two  most  baleful  errors  are  declared  by  him  to 
be  Infant  Baptism  and  the  doctrine  of  a  hierarchy.in  the  Church. 

Laelius  Socinus  was  an  Italian  of  good  birth  and  ample  means, 
and  was  one  of  the  Protestants  who  crossed  the  Alps  and  found 
an  asylum  in  Switzerland.  He  visited  Calvin  at  Geneva  twice  ; 
conversed,  also,  on  theological  topics  with  many  other  eminent 
Protestant  teachers,  and  died  in  Zurich  in  1562.  His  learning,  his 
polished  manners,  and  interest  in  religious  questions,  were  mani¬ 
fest.  In  conversation  he  commonly  took  the  part  of  an  inquirer, 
was  reserved  in  communicating  opinions  of  his  own,  but  was 
anxious  for  relief  from  doubts  and  difficulties.  Calvin  found  fault 
with  his  excessive  curiosity.  The  papers  of  Lselius  passed  into  the 
hands  of  his  gifted  nephew,  Faustus,  who  also  spent  a  considerable 
time  in  Switzerland  at  Zurich  and  at  Basle,  and  originated,  on  the 
basis  of  the  hints  and  suggestions  left  by  his  uncle,  the  system 
called  Socinianism.  In  1579,  he  went  to  Poland,  where  Unitarian 
emigrants  before  him  had  settled,  and  where  the  influence  of  Ital¬ 
ian  culture  and  opinions  was  exclusive.  At  first,  the  Unitarians  at 
Cracow  who  held  the  Anabaptist  opinion,  demanded  of  him  that 
he  should  be  rebaptized.  Eventually  he  won  them  over  from 
their  insistence  on  this  test,  to  which  he  refused  to  conform.  He 
became  the  leader  of  the  Polish  Unitarians,  who  were  protected 
by  sympathetic  nobles  of  the  country.  A  summary  of  the  tenets 
of  the  Polish  Unitarians  is  given  in  the  Racovian  Catechism,  com-, 
posed  by  the  preachers  of  Racow,  and  first  published  in  1605,  a 
year  after  the  death  of  Faustus.  It  was  translated  from  Polish 
into  Latin  in  1609.  In  1659,  it  was  issued  in  a  much  enlarged 
form  by  Crell  and  Schlichting,  eminent  Socinian  leaders.  The 
writings  of  Faustus,  together  with  those  of  the  two  authors  just 
named,  and  the  works  of  Wolzogenius,  are  the  authorities  for  the 
exposition  of  the  Socinian  system,  a  system  which  was  wrought 
out  with  remarkable  logical  and  critical  acumen. 


Y 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


322 

The  characteristics  that  strike  us  first  in  looking  at  this  system 
is  the  conjunction  in  it  of  rationalism  and  an  extreme  supernatural¬ 
ism.  This  union  is  accounted  for  when  we  observe  that  religion 
is  conceived  of  as  a  way  of  attaining  eternal  life,  and  as  having 
its  roots  in  obedience  to  God,  of  whose  will  it  is  professed  that 
we  are  not  able  by  our  unassisted  faculties  to  become  acquainted. 
Connected  with  this  view  of  the  nature  of  religion  as  ethical  in 
its  essence,  and  of  human  nature  as  incapable  of  discerning  super¬ 
natural  realities,  is  the  conception  of  God.  In  Him,  will  has  the 
central  and  supreme  place.  The  whole  view  is  closely  akin  to  the 
rationalism  of  Scotus  and  the  other  Nominalists,  who,  in  despair 
of  otherwise  ascertaining  truths  respecting  divine  things,  fell  back 
exclusively  op  the  testimony  of  revelation.  In  accord  with  this 
peculiarity  of  Socinus  and  his  associates,  is  their  large  reliance 
on  the  miraculous  proofs  of  the  divine  mission  of  Christ,  and  on 
the  externa]  evidences  of  the  authority  of  the  Scriptures.  The 
Bible,  especially  the  New  Testament,  is  the  authoritative  source 
of  religious  knowledge.  As  Christianity  in  its  principal  feature 
is  a  revelation  of  God’s  will,  or  of  law,  and  as  the  New  Testa¬ 
ment  carries  this  to  perfection,  the  value  of  the  Old  Testament 
is  considered  to  be  chiefly  historical.  Reason  is  to  be  exercised 
in  interpreting  the  contents  of  the  Bible,  and  Reason  is  expressly 
associated  with  Scripture  as  a  means  of  deciding  what  Christianity 
really  is.  The  point  of  difference  between  the  Socinians  and  the 
later  Nominalists  lies  in  the  rejection  by  the  former  of  the  doc¬ 
trines  which  constitute  the  mysterious  side  of  Christian  theology, 
—  in  particular  the  Trinity  and  the  Divinity  of  Christ.  Here 
we  recognize  the  influence  of  the  Italian  Renaissance.  Every¬ 
thing  is  examined  and  judged  in  the  dry  light  of  the  understand¬ 
ing,  yet  —  under  the  prescribed  limitations  —  with  consummate 
ability. 

The  Socinians  considered  the  Trinity  to  be  inconceivable  and 
self-contradictory,  and  thus  incapable  of  being  really  believed. 
God  is  an  individual.  His  will  is  exerted  and  manifested  in  Crea¬ 
tion,  in  His  universal  Providence,  and  in  the  bestowal  of  rewards 
upon  those  who  obey  Him.  What  God  is  in  Himself  is  inscruta¬ 
ble.  We  only  know  what  He  wills,  and  what  He  reveals  concern¬ 
ing  His  will.  His  revelation  is  made  through  Christ.  He  is  a 
man.  A  combination  of  two  natures,  as  the  orthodox  doctrine 
teaches,  is  impossible  and  hence  incredible.  But  God  can  im- 


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MODERN  THEOLOGY 


323 


part  superhuman  powers  to  creatures  and  commit  to  them  offices 
exalted  above  the  capacity  of  unaided  humanity  to  fulfil.  Christ 
differs  from  other  men  in  his  miraculous  birth.  His  nature,  how¬ 
ever,  is  not  the  less  exclusively  human  on  account  of  this  mode  of 
coming  into  being.  He  is  the  Son  of  God  by  adoption.  Before 
He  enters  upon  His  ministry  He  is  taken  up  to  Heaven  and  made 
acquainted  with  what  He  has  to  teach.  Upon  His  resurrection 
He  is  exalted  to  the  exercise  of  a  subordinate  but  real  dominion 
over  God’s  Kingdom,  and  so  will  be  qualified  supernaturally  to 
exercise  judgment.  Thus  endowed  and  clothed  with  sovereignty, 
He  may  be  called  God  in  the  sense  in  which  £he  Old  Testament 
uses  the  title  respecting  creatures  raised  by  Him  to  a  participation 
in  His  counsels  and  His  administration.  He  may  even,  Socinus 
taught,  be  adored,  and  He  may,  without  sin,  be  invoked.  On  this 
point,  an  opposite  opinion  was  advocated  by  Francis  Davidis,  a 
prominent  Socinian  leader.  There  came  to  be  two  parties  on  the 
question  relative  to  adoring  Christ,  the  adorantes  and  the  non- 
adorantes.  The  Holy  Spirit,  in  the  Socinian  theology,  is  another 
name  for  a  power  of  influence,  exerted  by  God.  The  church 
doctrine  of  the  satisfaction  of  Christ  is  denied.  His  death  is  a 
manifestation  of  compassion,  and  its  principal  significance  is  the 
assurance  it  furnishes  of  the  reality  of  God’s  purpose  to  pardon 
sin.  It  is  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  which,  in  the  Socinian  system, 
is  the  fact  of  primary  importance.  It  confirms  the  divine  offer 
of  forgiveness.  It  brings  Christ  into  the  glorified  life,  wherein  He 
exercises  His  High  Priestly  office  as  an  intercessor. 

The  Socinian  exegesis,  as  far  as  the  divinity  of  Christ  is  con¬ 
cerned,  encountered  the  most  difficulty  in  disposing  of  passages 
concerning  His  preexistence.  Some  of  the  Socinians  were  con¬ 
strained  to  teach  a  preexistence  only  in  the  divine  purpose.  As 
to  the  prologue  of  John’s  Gospel,  the  Logos  was  said  to*  be 
impersonal,  and  the  “  all  things  ”  made  were  said  to  denote  the 
things  of  the  Gospel,  the  spiritual  creation  which  springs  from 
the  Saviour’s  agency  among  men.  The  title  of  Logos  is  given 
to  Christ  for  'what  He  is  to  be  and  for  the  exaltation  which 
He  is  to  experience. 

Socinus  classified  the  Scriptural  passages  pertaining  to  the 
Atonement  under  four  heads.  The  passages  which  speak  of 
redemption  by  Christ  or  by  His  blood,  or  of  His  life  as  being 
a  ransom  for  us,  are  pronounced  metaphorical.  Moses  is  said  to 


324 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


have  redeemed  Israel  from  bondage.  The  passages  which  say 
that  Christ  died  for  ns  or  for  our  sins  are  said  to  mean  that  our 
sins  were  the  cause  or  occasion  of  His  death,  or  that  He  died  to 
win  us  from  the  practice  of  sin,  —  nothing  else  being  required  as 
the  condition  of  pardon.  The  passages  which  refer  to  the  bear¬ 
ing  of  our  sins  by  Christ  —  e.g.  i  Peter  ii.  14  —  are  asserted  to 
denote  simply  that  Pie  took  away  our  sins  by  moving  us  to  aban¬ 
don  them,  or  (as  possibly  in  the  case  of  Isaiah  lviii.  6),  that  his 
sufferings  were  occasioned  by  our  transgressions,  no  idea  of  satis¬ 
faction  for  sins  being  included.  The  passages  which  designate 
the  death  of  Christ  as  a  sacrifice  and  Christ  as  a  High  Priest 
contain  no  idea  of  expiation,  for  such  an  element  is  not  in  the 
Old  Testament  institutions  from  which  these  expressions  are 
derived.  The  priestly  office  of  Christ  consists  in  His  doing  every¬ 
thing  requisite  for  the  communication  to  us  of  the  forgiveness 
promised  by  God.  The  capital  element  in  this  function  of  Christ 
is  His  intercession  above,  to  which  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews 
refers.  The  objections  of  Socinus  to  the  Church  doctrine  on 
grounds  of  reason  are  acutely  stated.  He  denies  that  retributive 
justice  is  a  property  of  God’s  nature  any  more  than  His  com¬ 
passion.  Both  are  dependent  upon  His  will.  Forgiveness  and 
satisfaction  are  incompatible.  Punishment  is  something  purely 
personal  and  hence  not  transferable.  One  or  the  other  of  two 
kinds  of  obedience,  active  and  passive,  attributed  to  Christ,  is 
superfluous,  since  passive  obedience  removes  all  the  guilt  growing 
out  of  a  want  of  active  obedience.  It  is  impossible  for  Christ  to 
furnish  the  satisfaction  required  by  the  orthodox  theory.  He  can 
endure  but  one  eternal  death.  He  is  not,  as  an  exalted  person, 
to  have  on  that  account  a  lighter  punishment.  As  God,  He  does 
not  suffer.  If  He  did  suffer,  this  would  not  atone  for  man’s  sin. 
Moreover,  Christ  owes  active  obedience  for  Himself.  If  He  did 
not,  it  would  avail  for  only  one  person. 

The  Socinians  held  that  the  natural  body  perishes  utterly  and 
finally,  and  that  the  body  with  which  the  spirit  is  clothed  hereafter 
is  a  new  spiritual  body.  The  condition  of  the  soul  in  the  inter¬ 
mediate  state  is  very  obscurely  indicated,  since  it  is  the  recipient 
of  no  sorrow  and  the  subject  of  no  penal  suffering.  Without' the 
body,  it  is  near  to  non-existence,  since  it  is  incapable  of  feeling  or 
perception.  As  immortality  is  represented  as  a  gift  of  God  to  the 
righteous,  annihilation  is  the  lot  of  the  wicked,  but  the  question 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


325 

when  this  lot  is  experienced  —  whether  at  the  judgment  or  later 
—  is  also  left  unanswered.1 

The  ultimate  source  of  the  antagonism  of  the  Socinian  theology 
to  Evangelical  Protestantism  lies  in  the  radical  difference  on  the 
subject  of  sin  and  of  its  effects  on  the  soul.  The  sin  of  the  first 
man  is  not  transmitted  to  his  posterity.  Men  in  their  natural  state 
are  still  free  to  choose  the  right.  Their  moral  depravity  is  minified, 
both  as  to  its  guilt  and  its  control,  in  comparison  with  the  doctrine 
of  the  Reformers  on  this  subject.  They  can  still  withstand 
temptation,  and  comply  with  the  special  commandments  of  the 
New  Testament.  The  conception  of  the  remedy  is  matched  to  the 
lower  conception  of  the  malady  from  which  man  is  to  be  delivered. 
As  critics  the  Socinians  set  exegesis  free  from  the  trammels  of  dog¬ 
matic  theology.  They  pursued  their  investigations  into  provinces 
which  had  been  guarded  in  a  great  degree  from  scrutiny  by  the 
force  of  tradition.  Thus  they  fill  an  important  place  in  the  progress 
of  theological  science.  But  their  service  for  the  most  part  ends 
here.  Their  positive  construction  of  doctrine  partakes  of  the 
weakness  of  the  foundations  on  which  it  is  made  to  rest.  “With 
the  old  dogmas,”  says  Harnack,  “  Socinianism  has  at  bottom  set 
aside  Christianity  as  a  religion.  Guilt  and  Penitence,  Faith  and 
Grace,  are  conceptions  which  are  only  saved  by  inconsistencies 
-r— out  of  regard  to  the  New  Testament  —  from  being  wholly  elimi¬ 
nated.”  2 

1  For  the  passages  on  this  topic,  see  Fock,  Der  Socianismus,  Vol.  II.  p. 

7G  sq- 

2  DG.  III.  691, 


CHAPTER  VI 


THE  ROMAN  CATHOLIC  SYSTEM  RESTATED  IN  THE  CREED  OF  TRENT - 

THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  JESUITS - JANSENISM - QUIETISM 

The  year  1541  may  be  considered  a  landmark  in  the  course  of 
the  contest  between  the  Protestants  and  the  Roman  Catholics.  In 
that  year  occurred  the  Colloquy  at  Ratisbon  between  the  theo¬ 
logians  of  the  two  parties.  Melanchthon,  on  the  one  side,  the 
most  pacific  of  the  Protestant  theologians,  conferred  with  Contarini, 
a  representative  of  those  on  the  Papal  side  who  had  the  least 
antipathy  to  Protestant  views  of  justification.  They  were  able  to 
unite  on  several  cardinal  points,  but  were  hopelessly  at  variance 
on  certain  other  points,  including  the  Eucharist  and  the  authority 
of  the  Pope.  An  armed  conflict  between  the  parties  in  Germany 
which  were  organized  in  distinct  leagues  was  at  that  time  threat¬ 
ened.  This  effort  to  avert  it  proved  futile.  A  year  before  the 
conference  at  Ratisbon,  the  organization  of  the  Society  of  Jesus 
had  received  the  Papal  sanction.  The  various  forces  that  brought 
on  the  Counter-Reformation  were  beginning  to  operate  with  an 
efficiency  that  went  on  increasing.  The  Popes  had  steadily  re¬ 
sisted  and  baffled  attempts  to  procure  the  assembling  of  a  General 
Council.  Apart  from  other  considerations,  the  memory  of  Constance 
and  Basle  was  too  fresh.  At  last  there  was  no  escape  from  taking 
this  unwelcome  step.  The  independent  action  of  princes  and 
countries  in  ecclesiastical  affairs  was  equally,  if  not  more,  to  be 
dreaded  than  a  council.  The  urgent  demands  of  the  Emperor, 
Charles  V.,  could  not  longer  be  evaded.  At  the  call  of  Paul  III., 
in  December,  1545,  the  Council  of  Trent — Trent  being  under 
German  rule  —  assembled.  In  this  first  period  of  the  Council, 
the  number  of  members,  all  told,  did  not  exceed  112.  They  were 
mostly  Italians.  In  1547,  the  Council  was  adjourned  sine  die.  It 
was  reassembled  by  Julius  III.  in  1551,  but  in  the  following  year 

326 


t 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


327 


was  again  adjourned.  After  ten  years,  in  January,  1562,  it  met 
once  more,  called  together  by  Paul  IV.,  and  terminated  its  exist¬ 
ence  in  December,  1563.  In  this  third  period,  255  persons  were 
counted  as  members,  of  whom  two-thirds  were  Italians. 

From  the  beginning,  the  Council  was  really  under  the  direction 
of  the  Pope.  Votes  were  not  taken  by  nations,  as  at  Constance. 
The  Papal  legates  presided  and  in  the  main  controlled  the  pro¬ 
ceedings.  It  was  insisted  that  no  proposals  should  be  brought 
before  the  body  except  by  them.  By  constant  correspondence 
with  Rome  the  Papal  approval  was  secured  in  advance  for  all 
the  propositions  relative  to  doctrines  for  which  the  sanction  of  the 
Council  was  asked.  The  topics  were  discussed  in  committees  or 
congregations  of  theologians  and  canonists,  were  sometimes  taken 
up  in  the  general  congregation,  and,  when  adopted,  were  solemnly 
proclaimed  in  the  general  sessions  of  the  body.  The  history  of 
the  Council  was  written  by  Father  Paul  Sarpi,  who  was  a  moderate 
Catholic,  with  a  strong  anti-papal  bias,  and  also  by  Pallivicini,  with 
a  bias  equally  strong  in  the  opposite  direction.  In  the  copious 
literature  on  the  subject,  the  publication  by  Theiner  of  the  official 
acts  of  the  Council  is  a  writing  of  great  value.1 

The  difficulties  which  the  Council  had  to  face  might  seem  in¬ 
superable.  How  should  it  begin?  Should  the  reform  of  abuses  be 
first  undertaken,  or  should  the  initial  work  be  the  positive  enunci¬ 
ation  of  doctrine  and  the  condemnation  of  the  Protestant  tenets  ? 
The  decision  was  adverse  to  the  urgent  demand  of  the  Emperor 
Charles.  Questions  of  doctrine  and  of  reform  were  to  be  con¬ 
sidered  together,  but  it  was  decided  to  frame  first  the  definitions 
of  doctrine,  in  opposition  to  heretical  opinions.  These  definitions 
were  set  forth  in  a  series  of  decrees,  with  anathemas  appended 
under  each  head.  In  the  Council  there  were  advocates  of  the 
Episcopal  system,  which  made  all  bishops  as  to  apostolical  succes¬ 
sion  on  a  par  with  the  Bishop  of  Rome.  What  should  be  deter¬ 
mined  on  this  subject?  There  were  a  few  members  who  in  their 
ideas  of  Justification  approached  near  to  the  Protestant  opinion. 

1  Theiner’s  work  (2  vols.  fol.  1874)  contains  only  the  official  Relation,  pre¬ 
pared  by  the  Secretary,  of  the  public  proceedings  of  the  Council.  Father 
Paul’s 'Istoria,  etc.,  was  first  published  in  London  (1619).  Pallivicini’s  Istoria 
appeared  in  1656-57.  Both  authors  made  use  of  important  documents.  For 
the  bibliography  relating  to  the  Council,  see  the  Real-Encycl.  d.  Prot.  Theol. 
Vol.  XVI.  p.  12,  Moller’s  Kirchengesch.  Vol.  III.  p.  215. 


328 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


They  might,  without  great  difficulty,  be  overruled  and  silenced. 
But  there  was  the  marked  diversity  upon  the  relation  of  divine 
agency  to  free-will,  where  the  Franciscans  followed  the  Scotist 
tendency  and  leaned  decidedly  to  Semi-Pelagian  tenets,  while 
the  Dominicans,  the  followers  of  Aquinas,  who  had  of  late  brought 
to  the  front  the  more  Augustinian  type  of  teaching,  were  arrayed 
against  them.  The  decrees  were  drawn  up  on  the  disputed  ques¬ 
tions,  with  patient  and  long-continued  labor,  and  with  exceeding 
skill.  The  policy  adopted  was  to  abstain  from  any  declaration  on 
points  where  the  several  schools  were  at  variance,  and  to  select 
phraseology  ambiguous  enough  to  secure  the  assent  of  each  of 
them.  Since  the  interpretation  of  the  Tridentine  Creed  was  rele¬ 
gated  to  the  Pope  exclusively,  its  character  led  of  necessity  to  an 
augmenting  of  the  Papal  prerogative.  The  discussion  of  the  most 
weighty  dogmatic  questions  began  in  the  fourth  session  of  the 
Council.  The  first  thing  to  be  settled  was  the  authoritative 
sources  of  dogma.  On  this  point,  tradition  was  pronounced  to 
have  equal  authority  with  Scripture.  The  Bishop  of  Chiazza  as¬ 
serted  in  the  discussion  that  this  opinion  is  impious.  He  soon  left 
the  Council  and  afterwards  retracted  his  obnoxious  statement.  By 
this  decree,  the  usages  sanctioned  by  Rome  were  furnished  with  an 
apostolic  warrant.  The  Vulgate  translation  was  made  authorita¬ 
tive —  “pro  authentica  habeatur  ” —  in  all  public  addresses,  ex¬ 
positions,  and  debates^  The  books  in  it,  including  the  Old 
Testament  Apocrypha,  were  declared  to  be  canonical,  —  the 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  being  set  down  in  the  list  as  the  four¬ 
teenth  Epistle  of  Paul.  Moreover,  it  was  decreed  that  interpre¬ 
tations  of  Scripture  must  be  in  accord  with  those  of  “  Holy  Mother 
Church,”  the  judge  of  “  its  true  sense.”  This  criterion  was  set  up 
in  place  of  the  unanimous  voice  of  the  Fathers.  In  the  fifth  ses¬ 
sion,  Original  Sin  was  expounded.  It  was  necessary  to  provide 
against  a  collision  of  the  Thomists  and  Scotists.  The  anathema 
was  pronounced  against  all  who  deny  that  “  the  entire  Adam  ” 
“  as  to  body  and  soul,”  was  changed  for  the  worse  —  “  in  deterius 
commutatum.”  The  phrase  is  vague  and  comprehensive.  The 
merit  of  Christ,  the  ground  of  salvation,  is  applied  in  baptism  to 
infants  as  well  as  adults.  By  this  sacrament,  “  the  guilt  of  original- 
sin  ”  is  remitted.  The  evil  principle,  concupiscence,  remains,  but 
brings  guilt  only  to  those  who  consent  to  its  impulses  ;  for  as  it 
springs  from  sin,  so  is  it  an  incentive  to  sin.  We  come  in  the 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


329 


sixth  session  to  the  decree  on  Justification,  which  contains  sixteen 
chapters  and  is  followed  by  the  negations  in  thirty-three  canons. 
On  this  subject  there  was  disagreement  in  the  debates  on  many 
particulars,  and  a  vast  amount  of  time  was  spent  in  settling  upon 
the  formulas.  At  the  outset,  along  with  an  assertion  of  the  need 
of  the  grace  of  the  Gospel,  free-will  is  declared  to  be  attenuated 
and  bent  down  (inclinatum) ,  but  by  no  means  {mini me)  extin¬ 
guished.  The  merit  of  the  passion  of  Christ  is  the  basis  of  the 
bestowal  of  the  grace  whereby  men  are  “made  just”  {justi 
fiunt) .  Justification  is  a  translation  from  the  natural  state  to  the 
state  of  grace,  for  which  change  baptism  “  or  the  desire  thereof” 
is  necessary.  As  to  the  preparation  for  justification  in  the  case  of 
adults,  “  prevenient  grace  ”  comes  first,  which  men  can  consent 
to  or  reject.  It  is  to  be  observed  that  a  thread  of  Semi-Pelagianism 
runs  through  the  whole  series  of  definitions.  If  one  accepts  this 
prevenient  grace,  he  exercises  faith  ;  that  is,  believes  the  revelations 
and  promises  of  God  to  be  true.  This  is  equivalent  to  saying  that 
he  accepts  the  doctrinal  teachings  of  the  Church.  When  he  thus 
believes,  when  he  begins  to  hope  in  the  divine  mercy,  and  to  love 
God,  to  hate  sin,  and  purpose  to  be  baptized  and  to  begin  a  new 
life,  the  preparation  is  complete.  Next  comes  the  answer  to  the 
question  what  Justification  is  and  its  causes.  It  embraces  the 
remission  of  sins  and  sanctification.  The  instrumental  cause  is 
the  sacrament  of  baptism,  the  primal  cause  is  God’s  justice  (or 
righteousness),  whereby  we  are  renewed  in  spirit  by  the  Holy 
Ghost,  who  distributes  to  every  one  as  He  wills  and  according  to 
“  each  one’s  disposition  and  co-operation .”  Man  receives  at  07ice 
forgiveness  and  grace,  hope  and  charity.  By  this  formula  the 
controversy  in  the  Council  on  the  question  whether  remission  pre¬ 
cedes  or  follows  the  infusion  of  subjective  righteousness  was 
allayed.  Justification  is  by  faith  and  freely,  first  because  faith 
is  the  beginning  and  root  of  Justification,  and  secondly  because 
neither  antecedent  faith  nor  works  merit  the  grace  itself  of  Justi¬ 
fication.  There  was  a  lack  of  unity  among  the  Fathers  of  the 
Council  on  the  subject  of  assurance.  They  took  refuge  in  the 
statement  that  it  is  not  to  be  said  that  sins  are  forgiven  to  any  one 
who  boasts  {jactanti)  of  the  certainty  of  His  forgiveness,  and  “  rests 
in  that  alone.”  As  one  ought  not  to  doubt  of  the  rhercy  of  God, 
so,  in  view  of  his  own  weakness,  he  may  have  “  fear  and  appre¬ 
hension”  {formidare  et  time  re).  Justification  is  declared  to  be 


330 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


capable  of  increase.  As  to  Perseverance,  one  should  have  a  firm 
hope,  but  cannot  be  absolutely  assured.  If  he  is  not  himself  over¬ 
confident  or  negligent  in  doing  his  part,  God’s  help  will  not  be 
wanting.  Respecting  Predestination,  very  little  is  said.  It  is 
spoken  of  as  a  hidden  mystery.  No  one  is  to  presume  that  if  he 
is  justified,  he  cannot  sin  or  that  he  is  sure  to  repent  if  he  does 
sin.  Whom  God  has  chosen  can  only  be  known  by  special  reve¬ 
lation.  For  those  who  have  fallen  from  grace,  the  sacrament  of 
penance  opens  the  way  to  receive  this  grace.  Penance  is  “  the 
second  plank  after  the  shipwreck  of  grace  lost.”  This  is  the 
provision  for  those  who  sin  after  baptism.  Its  parts  are  confes¬ 
sion,  absolution,  and  satisfaction  by  fasts,  prayers,  alms,  etc. 
Eternal  life  is  both  a  grace  promised  to  the  children  of  God  and 
a  reward  for  their  good  works  and  merits.  It  is  through  the 
virtue  infused  by  the  grace  of  Christ  that  their  meritorious 
works  are  performed.  God  will  have  His  own  gifts  to  be  their 
merits.  The  canons  emphasize  the  part  taken  by  free-will  in 
preparing  for  justification  (IX.),  and  condemns  the  errors 
that  good  works  are  purely  the  fruit  of  justification,  do  not 
increase  it,  and  are  not  meritorious  (XXIV.,  XXXII.). 

In  the  decree  on  the  sacraments  (Session  VII.)  the  characteristics 
of  the  Roman  Catholic  system  are  most  distinctly  brought  out. 
Through  the  sacraments,  Justification  in  all  its  stages  is  imparted. 
They  are  seven  in  number,  all  instituted  by  Christ.  They  convey 
grace  to  all  who  interpose  no  obstacle  thereto.  Three  of  them, 
baptism,  confirmation,  and  orders,  imprint  an  indelible  character, 
the  meaning  of  which  is  not  explained.  The  intention  of  doing 
what  the  Church  does  is  required  in  the  minister.  Baptism  is 
necessary  to  salvation.  In  the  Eucharist  (which  is  treated  in 
Session  XIII.)  Christ  is  said  to  be  present  in  His  own  substance 
by  a  manner  of  existing  not  explicable  in  words,  but  possible  to  God. 
Transubstantiation  takes  place,  and  concomitance  is  affirmed.  The 
highest  form  of  worship  ( latria )  is  due  to  the  sacrament.  The 
annual  festival  of  Corpus  Christi  is  said  to  have  been  most 
piously  and  religiously  introduced  into  the  Church.  No  one  must 
approach  the  sacrament  except  after  sacramental  confession,  a 
rule  that  applies  to  priests  as  well  as  laymen.  In  the  twenty-first 
session,  it  was  declared  that  the  Church  has  a  right  to  withhold 
the  cup  from  communicants,  and  that  when  this  is  done,  a  true 
sacrament  is  nevertheless  fully  received.  In  the  sacrament  of 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


331 


penance  (Session  XIV.)  the  priest  fulfils  the  office  of  a  judge. 
Contrition  is  the  first  requirement  and  element.  Attrition  is 
designated  as  an  “  imperfect  contrition.”  It  assists  the  penitent, 
disposing  him  to  obtain  the  grace  of  God  in  the  sacrament.  The 
language  here  is  not  clear,  but  on  the  whole  it  appears  that  sanc¬ 
tion  is  not  given  to  the  Scotist  opinion  on  this  topic.  All  mortal 
sins  must  be  confessed,  and  this  must  be  done  at  least  once  a 
year.  The  reservation  of  cases,  both  by  the  Pope,  and  by  ordi¬ 
nary  bishops,  each  in  his  own  diocese,  is  sanctioned.  At  the 
point  of  death  there  is  no  reservation.  Then  all  priests  may  ab¬ 
solve  all  penitents.  Satisfaction  is  required  of  such  as  are  absolved, 
the  efficacy  of  which  is  through  Christ.  It  is  both  medicinal  and 
penal.  In  the  twenty-fifth  session  the  doctrine  concerning  indul¬ 
gences  was  set  forth.  Caution  was  imposed  relative  to  entering,  in 
popular  discourses,  into  subtile  and  difficult  questions  about  Pur¬ 
gatory.  Whatever  savors  of  filthy  lucre  in  connection  with  this 
matter  of  indulgences  is  to  be  avoided.  It  is  ordained  that  all 
evil  gains  from  the  issue  of  indulgences,  “  a  prolific  cause  of 
abuses,”  shall  be  abolished.  But  the  people  are  to  be  taught  that 
masses,  prayers,  alms,  and  the  like  are  to  be  performed  according 
to  the  rules  of  the  Church,  for  the  departed.  Under  the  head  of 
Ordination  (Session  XXIII.),  the  divine  institution  of  the  hierarchy 
is  affirmed.  Its  divine  orders  are  authorized  either  by  Scripture 
or  tradition  (c.  II.).  Bishops  are  declared  to  be  superior  to  pres¬ 
byters.  To  bishops  belong  the  right  to  confirm  and  to  ordain. 
But  the  disputed  question  whether  bishops  derive  their  succession 
directly  from  Christ,  as  does  the  Pope,  or  through  him,  was  left 
untouched.  There  was  a  strenuous  party  on  the  side  of  Episco- 
palism  and  against  the  Curialists.  The  brief  reference  (Session 
XXIII.  Canon  VIII.)  to  the  Roman  Pontiff,  in  connection  with 
“  legitimate  and  true  bishops,”  is  obscure  and  indeterminate.  Nor 
is  the  question  settled  by  the  phrases  in  the  Roman  Catechism 
respecting  the  “  legitimate  successor  of  Peter”  and  the  vicar  of 
Christ  (c.  10.  q.  10).  One  of  the  canons  on  marriage  (X.) 
anathematizes  those  who  place  it  above  the  state  of  virginity,  and 
who  say  that  the  state  of  virginity  and  celibacy  is  not  better  than 
that  of  matrimony.  On  the  invocation  of  saints  and  the  veneration 
of  relics  and  images,  the  established  traditions  were  sanctioned, 
but  abuses  that  may  have  crept  in  were  to  be  sedulously  weeded 
out  by  careful  teaching.  The  Council  of  Trent  did  a  good  service 


332 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


by  enactments  relative  to  the  education  and  morals  of  the  clergy, 
and  by  other  ordinances  bearing  on  practical  reforms  in  matters 
ecclesiastical.  To  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  it  was  of  inesti¬ 
mable  value  as  furnishing  a  definite  statement  of  its  dogmas,  and 
a  catalogue  of  the  opinions  which  were  to  be  considered  false  and 
heretical. 

Buttresses  of  Papal  prerogative,  which  were  not  erected  in  the 
Council  itself,  were  indirectly  supplied  in  the  formularies  which,  in 
accordance  with  an  act  of  the  Council,  were  issued  later  under 
the  auspices  of  the  Pope.  In  1564,  the  Professio  Fidei ,  the  form 
of  acceptance  of  the  Tridentine  Creed,  to  be  subscribed  by  priests 
and  instructors  of  youth,  was  published  by  Pius  V.  It  contains 
an  explicit  promise  of  obedience  to  the  Pontiffs.  The  Roman 
Catechism —  Catechismus  Romanus  —  was  composed  under  Do¬ 
minican  influence,  and  hence  the  Jesuits  often  preferred  their  own 
Catechism,  composed  by  Canisius.  The  Roman  Catechism  makes 
the  Pope  the  visible  head,  as  Christ  is  the  invisible,  of  the  Church, 
and  styles  him  the  “Vicar  and  Minister  ”  of  the  powers  of  Christ.1 

The  Jesuits  were  the  stanch  defenders  of  Papal  supremacy 
until  their  own  opinions  encountered  Papal  opposition,  and  finally 
their  policy  in  the  conduct  of  missions  in  the  East  was  con¬ 
demned  at  Rome.  The  ablest  theological  champion  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  doctrine  was  a  Jesuit,  Robert  Bellarmine,  whose 
work  furnished  a  storehouse  of  controversial  weapons  to  be  used 
against  Protestant  heresies.  Bellarmine  advocates  the  doctrine  of 
the  Pope’s  personal  infallibility  as  a  teacher  of  doctrine  and  also 
of  morals.  He  taught  that  the  authority  of  bishops  is  derived, 
not  immediately  from  Christ,  but  from  the  Pope.  On  the  ques¬ 
tions  which  divided  Thomists  from  the  school  opposed  to  them, 
the  Council  of  Trent  had  managed  to  steer  between  Scylla  and 
Charybdis,  partly  by  means  of  silence  and  partly  by  ambiguity. 
Subsequently  there  sprung  up  two  movements  adverse  to  one 
another,  and  representing  extremes  as  compared  with  the  via 
media  of  the  Council.  The  Jesuit  theologians  contended  with 
zeal  for  an  advanced  type  of  Semi-Pelagianism.  Against  them, 
there  occurred  a  revival  of  Augustinianism,  the  authors  of  which 
adhered  closely  to  the  tenets  of  the  founder  of  the  system.  In 

1  The  Index  libr.  prohibit,  was  issued  by  Pius  IV.  (1564).  The  reading  of 
the  Bible  in  the  vernacular  is  permitted  only  to  such  as  have  a  written  license 
from  the  Bishop  and  Inquisitor,  given  upon  the  advice  of  the  Father  Confessor. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


333 


the  Netherlands,  where  the  revived  Augustinianism  first  appeared, 
the  movement  was  not  due  to  any  Protestant  influence,  nor  was 
it  so,  to  any  material  extent,  elsewhere.  Michael  Bajus,  at  the 
University  of  Louvain,  promulgated  the  tenets  of  the  Latin 
Father  in  their  pure  form.  Seventy-nine  points  of  his  teaching 
were  condemned  by  Pius  V.  in  1567.  In  the  list  are  the  state¬ 
ments  that  no  sin  is  in  its  nature  venial,  that  free-will  without 
grace  to  help  can  only  sin,  that  in  the  redeemed  there  is  no 
merit  which  is  not  gratuitously  given  by  God,  that  concupiscence 
continues  to  be  sin.1  Afterwards  the  Louvain  faculty  as  well  as 
Bajus  were  compelled  to  abjure  the  obnoxious  theses.  In  1588, 
Molina,  a  Spanish  Jesuit,  distinctly  propounded  Semi-Pelagianism. 
He  brought  forward  the  theory  of  scientia  media ,  —  the  doctrine, 
namely,  that  God,  foreknowing  what  all  persons  would  do  under 
any  and  all  circumstances,  sends  to  perdition  such  as  He  foresees 
would  remain  obdurate,  whatever  exertions  might  be  made,  even 
by  divine  grace,  to  recover  them.  This  doctrine  had  been  first  set 
forth  by  Fonseca,  a  Portuguese  theologian.  The  Molinists  were 
combated  not  only  by  many  outside  of  the  Jesuit  order,  but  even 
by  a  party  within  it.  The  debate  spread  and  became  so  excited 
that  Clement  VIII.  appointed  a  special  congregation  —  Congregatio 
de  auxiliis  gratice  —  to  give  a  decision.  This  was  in  1597.  Noth¬ 
ing  but  an  unwillingness  to  offend  the  Jesuits  deterred  him  from 
rendering  a  decision  against  them.  But  the  congregation  came  to 
no  result,  and  in  1607  Paul  V.  imposed  silence  on  both  parties  of 
disputants,  forbidding  anything  written  by  them  on  the  subject  to 
be  printed. 

In  various  other  particulars,  the  Jesuits  inculcated  a  lax  theology. 
They  taught  that  in  the  Sacrament  of  Penance,  where  there  is  only 
attrition,  it  suffices  for  Justification.2  High  authorities  among 
them,  of  whom  Bellarmine  was  one,  argued  in  favor  of  the  propo¬ 
sition  that  a  Pope  could  not  embrace  heresy,  and  that  an  act 
believed  by  one  to  be  sinful,  one  ought,  nevertheless  —  if  it  were 
enjoined  by  the  Pope  —  to  perform.3  The  theory  of  popular  sov¬ 
ereignty  was  adopted  and  served  as  a  means  of  exalting  the  Popes 
as  deriving  their  authority,  in  distinction  from  princes,  directly 

1  For  the  passages,  see  Gieseler,  KG.  Vol.  III.  iii.  §  595  Thomasius,  DG. 
Vol.  II.  p.  720. 

2  For  the  passages  from  Jesuit  authorities,  see  Gieseler,  V.  III.  iii.  §  60. 

3  Ibid.  Vol.  V.  p.  99. 


334 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


from  God.  Laxness  in  theology  was  accompanied  by  a  mis¬ 
chievous  casuistry  and  by  a  not  unfrequent  inculcation  of  ethical 
precepts  which  strike  at  the  foundations  of  morality.1  The  doc¬ 
trine  of  “  probabilism,”  which,  if  they  did  not  originate,  they  took 
up  and  spread  abroad,  sanctioned  the  doing  of  an  act  the  lawful¬ 
ness  of  which  is  supported  by  the  authority  of  a  single  doctor. 
The  maxim  that  the  end  justifies  the  means,  if  it  be  not  explicitly 
avowed,  is  assumed.  It  is  taught  that  a  man  without  offending 
conscience  may  do  an  act  which  conscience  forbids,  when  his 
design  is  not  to  sin,  but  to  promote  a  good  cause.  So  the  doc¬ 
trine  of  mental  reservation  in  promises  —  of  qualifications,  not 
expressed,  but  purely  mental  —  had  a  wide  approval.  The  right¬ 
fulness  of  tyrannicide  was  frequently  defended  by  Jesuit  authors 
of  high  repute.  The  murder  of  Henry  III.  was  extensively  ap¬ 
proved.  The  assassin  of  Henry  IV.  had  studied  with  Jesuits,  and 
had  adopted  the  idea  of  the  rectitude  of  such  a  deed.  There  were 
also  writers  on  casuistry,  for  the  guidance  of  priests  in  the  Confes¬ 
sional,  who,  apart  from  other  baneful  teachings,  gave  such  directions 
and  entered  into  such  distinctions  in  respect  to  sexual  relations  as 
are  shameful  in  their  indecency  and  corrupt  tendency.  The  Jesuit 
Society  did  important  services  to  learning.  It  has  comprehended 
in  its  ranks  many  unselfish  and  holy  men.  But,  while  these  merits 
ought  not  to  be  overlooked,  they  ought  not  to  screen  from  de¬ 
served  reprobation  the  sins  —  in  doctrine  as  well  as  practice — ■ 
which  brought  upon  the  organization  widespread  condemnation. 

The  most  noteworthy  movement  in  this  period  in  behalf  of 
Augustinian  theology  was  Jansenism.  It  became  the  occasion  of 
a  formidable  and  effective  attack  upon  the  Jesuit  theology  and 
ethics.  Jansenius  was  a  professor  at  Louvain,  and  then  Bishop  of 
Ypres.  He  died  in  middle  life,  in  1638.  On  his  posthumous 
work,  Augustinus ,  he  had  labored  for  twenty- two  years.  It  is  a 
statement  and  defence  of  Augustine’s  system  in  its  genuine  form. 
On  Original  Sin,  the  fall  of  the  race  in  Adam,  on  human  inability, 
on  irresistible  grace,  and  the  other  kindred  points,  the  actual 
teaching  of  the  Latin  Father  was  clearly  set  forth.  The  book  was 
printed  in  1640.  Shortly  after,  it  was  prohibited  by  the  Inquisitors 
and  by  Urban  VIII.  The  Papal  bull  {in  eminent i)  was  not  ac¬ 
cepted  in  France  by  the  group  of  men  known  as  Port  Royalists. 
The  Abbot  of  St.  Cyran,  Arnauld,  Blaise  Pascal,  and  Nicole,  were 

1  See  Gieseler,  tit  supra . 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


335 


the  leaders  in  an  aggressive  warfare  upon  the  theology  and  ethics 
of  the  Jesuits,  by  whom  Jansenism  was  fiercely  assailed.  These 
leaders  were  devoted  Catholics,  earnest  and  ascetic  in  their  piety. 
All  were  men  of  striking  abilities.  The  great  genius  among  them 
was  Pascal,  whose  Thoughts — preliminary  notes  for  an  intended 
work  on  Apologetics  —  are  marked  by  originality  and  insight.  In 
the  Provincial  Letters ,  Pascal  held  up  to  view,  in  a  most  attractive 
literary  style  and  with  keen  satire,  the  theology  and  ethics  preva¬ 
lent  among  the  Jesuits.  Innocent  III.,  in  1653,  in  the  bull  cum 
occasione ,  condemned  five  propositions  purporting  to  be  extracted 
from  Jansenius’s  work.  One  of  them  is  the  proposition  that  grace 
is  irresistible.  Another  is  that  it  is  Semi-Pelagian  to  assert  that 
Christ  died  for  all  men.  In  resisting  this  decision,  Arnauld  took 
the  ground  that  the  propositions,  as  they  were  recited,  were  not 
in  the  Augustinus ,  and  that  on  this  question  —  question  de  fait — 
the  Pope  was  not  infallible.  Pope  Alexander  VII.,  in  1656,  anath¬ 
ematized  all  those  who  should  say  that  the  five  propositions  are 
not  in  Jansenius.  To  the  formula  of  assent  to  the  bulls  against 
him,  including  the  last,  all  the  French  bishops  were  finally  moved 
to  subscribe.  The  influence  of  the  Jesuits  and  the  power  of  their 
ally,  Louis  XIV.,  secured  their  triumph.  The  cloister  of  Port 
Royal  was  demolished.  But  Jansenism  was  not  eradicated.  The 
last  stage  in  the  Jansenist  controversies  carries  us  into  the 
eighteenth  century.  The  New  Testament  with  Moral  Reflections 
of  Quesnel  was  the  work  of  a  Jansenist.  The  Jesuits  obtained  at 
Rome,  in  the  bull  Unige?iitus ,  a  condemnation  of  the  work,  speci¬ 
fying  one  hundred  and  one  heresies  said  to  be  contained  in  it. 
The  King’s  confessor  had  charged  it  with  containing  more  than  a 
hundred  heresies,  and  the  bull  was  shaped  with  a  view  to  make 
good  the  charge.  The  bull  went  beyond  the  denial  of  the  plainest 
utterances  of  Augustine  and  other  Fathers  of  the  Church,  and  in¬ 
cluded  the  denunciation  of  doctrines  accepted  by  Christians  gener¬ 
ally.  The  Cardinal  de  Noailles,  Archbishop  of  Paris,  had  approved 
of  Quesnel’s  book.  Those  who  called  for  an  appeal  from  the  Pope 
to  a  General  Council  were  styled  Appellants ;  the  opposite  party 
were  the  Acceptants.  The  Appellants  were  numerous  and  distin¬ 
guished.  Parliament  was  in  favor  of  them.  The  government, 
especially  after  Louis  XV.  acceded  to  the  throne,  was  against  them, 
and  their  cause  was  crushed.  The  subsequent  events  relating  to 
Jansenism  it  does  not  belong  to  the  History  of  Doctrine  to  narrate. 


336 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


In  contrast  with  the  prevalent  externalism  in  religion  was  the 
development  of  mysticism  in  the  form  which  has  received  the 
name  of  Quietism.  Molinos  published  in  1675  The  Spiritual 
Guide,  in  which  he  unfolded  his  ideas  pertaining  to  a  devout  life 
and  the  sources  of  inward  peace.  Abstinence,  maceration  of  the 
body,  penances,  were  deemed  by  him  of  little  value,  save  at  the 
beginning  of  a  course  of  self-discipline.  The  secret  of  peace  is  in 
contemplation  and  self-surrender  to  God.  The  opposition  of  the 
Jesuits  was  aroused."  The  Inquisition  took  up  the  matter.  Mo¬ 
linos  was  sentenced  to  perpetual  imprisonment.  The  charge  that 
he  retracted  his  teachings,  or  that  he  taught  an  immoral  doctrine  of 
the  indifference  of  exterior  acts  when  the  soul  is  wedded  to  God, 
is  not  sustained  by  adequate  proofs.  The  ideas  of  Madame  Guyon 
respecting  the  bliss  of  an  absorption  of  the  human  will  in  the  divine 
and  the  absorption  of  the  soul  in  God,  were  judged  to  be  heretical 
by  Bossuet  and  other  prelates.  Fenelon,  who  dissented  from  this 
opinion,  inculcated  in  his  Maxiins  of  the  Saints  a  like  mystical 
doctrine.  Bossuet  was  supported  in  his  disapproval  of  this  book 
by  the  Sorbonne,  and  by  the  Pope,  who,  in  1699,  declared  that  its 
teachings  are  erroneous.  Thereupon,  Fenelon  immediately  and 
in  public  retracted  them. 

Bossuet,  in  his  Exposition  of  the  Catholic  Faith,  presented 
the  tenets  of  the  Church  in  a  liberal  and  plausible  form.  His 
polemical  work,  the  History  of  the  Variations  of  Protestantism, 
(1688)  is  an  ingenious  attempt  to  show  that  Protestantism  is 
another  name  for  a  chaos  of  conflicting  opinions,  from  which  the 
only  escape  is  in  submission  to  the  authority  of  the  Church.  Dur¬ 
ing  the  contest  of  Louis  XIV.  for  absolutism  in  matters  ecclesias¬ 
tical  as  well  as  civil  and  secular,  the  clergy  of  France,  in  the 
Assembly  of  1682,  asserted  the  four  propositions  of  Gallicanism, 
that  the  Pope’s  authority  extends  only  to  spiritual  affairs,  that  his 
authority  is  subordinate  to  that  of  a  General  Council,  that  he  is 
bound  by  the  canon  law  and  by  the  special  institutions  and  usages 
of  the  French  Church,  and  that  his  doctrinal  decisions  are  not 
irreformable  unless  they  have  the  concurrence  of  the  whole  Church. 
After  the  King  made  peace  with  Innocent  XI.,  the  Articles  were 
no  longer  insisted  upon,  and  the  bishops  were  suffered  to  disavow 
them.  In  this  conflict,  Bossuet  was  the  champion  of  Gallican 
freedom,  but,  owing  to  the  settlement  just  referred  to,  his  work 
in  defence  of  it  did  not  see  the  light  until  1729. 


CHAPTER  VII 


THE  ARMINIAN  REVOLT  AGAINST  CALVINISM - THE  SCHOOL  OF 

SAUMUR - PAJONISM - THE  FEDERAL  THEOLOGY 

Calvin  in  his  lifetime  had  to  contend  against  adversaries  who 
assailed  his  doctrine  of  Predestination.  One  was  Albert  Pighius, 
a  Roman  Catholic  bishop  at  Utrecht,  who,  from  a  Pelagian  point 
of  view,  undertook  to  prove  by  the  usual  arguments  that  the  doc¬ 
trine  was  destructive  of  morality.  Calvin  answered  him  in  his 
book  De  Libero  Arbitrio.  Castellio,  after  he  left  Geneva, 
attacked  Calvin’s  opinion.  Jerome  Bolsec,  who  had  been  a 
Carmelite,  and  had  established  himself  as  a  physician  at  Geneva, 
was  imprisoned,  and  afterwards  banished,  on  account  of  his  hos¬ 
tility  to  the  doctrine  of  unconditional  election,  although  the 
theologians  of  Basle,  Zurich,  and  Berne  counselled  milder  treat¬ 
ment.  In  consequence  of  these  attacks,  Calvin  -composed  the 
Consensus  Genevensis.  After  the  death  of  Calvin,  the  extreme 
supralapsarian  form  of  the  doctrine  was  set  forth  without  qualifica¬ 
tion  by  his  followers.  This  was  Beza’s  opinion.  Previous  opposi¬ 
tion  was  of  little  account,  compared  with  the  great  Arminian 
revolt.  Arminianism  was  an  uprising  against  the  Calvinistic  doc¬ 
trine,  of  signal  importance  in  the  history  of  the  Reformed  Theol¬ 
ogy.  It  appeared  in  Holland,  which,  even  more  than  Switzerland, 
became  the  centre  of  theological  activity.  This  was  owing,  in  no 
small  degree,  to  the  influx  of  Protestant  theologians  of  ability  and 
learning  from  France.  Calvinistic  influences  more  and  more 
gained  the  preponderance  over  the  Lutheran,  and  found  expres¬ 
sion  in  the  Belgic  Confession,  which  was  presented  to  Philip  II. 
in  1562.  There  were  symptoms  of  dissent  from  the  Calvinistic 
tenet  before  James  Arminius  raised  the  standard  against  it.  He 
was  a  ripe  scholar,  had  travelled  extensively,  had  been  a  pupil  of 
Beza,  and  had  followed  his  teaching.  Being  called  upon,  how- 

337 


z 


33§ 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


ever,  to  defend  the  supralapsarian  opinion,  against  Koornheert  and 
others,  he  entered  into  investigations  which  led  him  to  renounce 
it.  When  he  became  professor  at  Leyden  (in  1603),  he  fell  into 
'  conflict  with  his  colleague,  Gomarus,  a  rigid  Calvinist.  Arminius 
|  died  in  1609,  not  before  he  had  had  time  to  set  forth  fully,  and 
in  a  lucid  style,  his  theological  system.  There  were  leaders  of 
V  great  talents  to  follow  in  his  steps,  of  whom  Episcopius,  his  suc¬ 
cessor  at  Leyden,  and  Uytenbogaert,  were  the  ablest.  Arminian- 
ism  spread  among  the  clergy  and  laity.  Political  differences 
mingled  in  the  theological  dispute.  The  Calvinists  were  adhe¬ 
rents  of  Maurice,  Prince  of  Orange.  The  Arminians,  who  counted 
on  their  side  the  great  statesmen,  Olden  Barneveld  and  Hugo 
Grotius,  advocated  the  union  of  Church  and  State,  and  a  Repub¬ 
lican  system.  Strong  as  the  Arminians  were  in  the  genius  and 
learning  of  their  chiefs,  they  were  greatly  outnumbered,  both 
among  the  clergy  and  the  laity,  by  their  opponents.  These  were 
not  at  all  disposed  to  tolerate  what  they  considered  doctrinal  and 
political  heresy.  The  Creed  of  the  Arminians  was  set  forth  in 
the  Remonstrance  addressed  in  1610  to  the  States  of  Holland 
and  West  Friesland,  the  document  which  gave  to  them  the  name 
of  Remonstrants.  It  consists  of  five  Articles.  The  first  asserts 
conditional  election,  or  election  dependent  on  the  foreknowledge 
of  faith.  The  second  asserts  universal  atonement,  in  the  sense 
that  it  is  intended,  although  it  is  not  actually  efficient,  for  all. 
The  third  affirms  the  inability  of  men  to  exercise  saving  faith,  or 
to  accomplish  anything  really  good  without  regeneration  through 
the  Holy  Spirit.  The  fourth  declares  that  although  grace  at  every 
step  of  the  spiritual  life  is  indispensable,  it  is  yet  not  irresistible. 
The  fifth  pronounces  the  Perseverance  of  all  believers  doubtful. 
Later,  the  Arminians  went  further  on  this  last  point,  maintaining 
that  believers  may  fall  from  grace  finally.  The  Remonstrance 
was  met  by  a  counter-Remonstrance  from  the  Calvinists.  An 
epoch  in  the  progress  of  the  contention  was  reached  through  the 
meeting  of  the  Synod  of  Dort  in  1618,  which  was  attended  by 
delegates  from  England,  sent  by  James  I.,  and  from  a  number 
of  other  Reformed  Churches.  It  was  unquestionably  a  learned, 
as  well  as  an  imposing,  assembly.  The  Arminians  were  not  per¬ 
mitted  to  sit  as  members,  but  were  invited  to  meet  the  Synod 
and  to  represent  their  cause  in  public  conference  with  its  mem¬ 
bers.  Neither  their  arguments  nor  their  pleas  for  toleration  had 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


339 


any  effect.  The  Synod  condemned  their  five  Articles,  sanctioned 
the  Belgic  Confession  and  the  Heidelberg  Catechism,  and  pro¬ 
mulgated  five  heads  or  chapters  of  doctrine  of  its  own.  Each 
chapter  is  divided  into  a  series  of  specifications.  The  chapters 
open  with  the  doctrine  of  Predestination,  which  is  sub-lapsarian 
in  its  form.  So  far  the  Dort  Creed  sanctioned  (against  Gomarus) 
the  more  moderate  type  of  Calvinism.  Election  is  from  the  fallen 
race,  condemned  for  their  sin  in  Adam  (i.).  The  elect  attain  to 
assurance  in  various  degrees  and  in  an  unequal  measure  (xii.). 
There  is  a  praeterition  of  the  non- elect,  and  “  this  is  the  decree 
of  reprobation”  (xvi.).  There  follows,  as  in  the  case  of  each  of 
the  articles,  a  list  of  Rejected  Errors.  The  necessity  of  a  com¬ 
plete,  objective  satisfaction  to  the  divine  justice  is  affirmed.  This 
is  through  the  death  of  Christ,  which  owes  its  atoning  value  to 
His  divine  nature.  There  was  difficulty  and  discussion  respecting 
the  statement  to  be  made  as  to  the  relation  of  the  Atonement  to 
the  non-elect.  The  Atonement  was  declared  to  be  of  infinite 
value,  and  sufficient  to  expiate  the  sins  of  the  world  (II.  iii.),  so 
that  no  one  is  lost  for  want  of  an  Atonement  (vi.).  It  was,  how¬ 
ever,  the  “will  and  intention”  of  God  that  the  Atonement  should 
be  efficacious  only  in  relation  to  the  elect,  who  are  given  to  Christ 
by  the  Father  (viii.).  The  significance  of  “limited  Atonement” 
is  thus  seen  to  be  that  in  the  divine  intention  —  the  “  intention  of 
love,”  it  was  sometimes  called  —  the  elect  alone  were  included. 
The  relation  of  the  Atonement  to  the  non-elect  is,  therefore,  only 
incidental.  The  corruption  of  human  nature  is  said  to  be  propa¬ 
gated  from  Adam  (III.  and  IV.  ii.).  Without  regenerating  grace, 
none  can  return  to  God  (iii.).  The  call  of  the  Gospel  is  made 
earnestly  to  all  who  hear  it  (viii.).  Nevertheless,  the  acceptance 
of  it  is  due  solely  to  a  discriminating,  efficient  act  of  God’s  grace, 
founded  exclusively  on  election  (x.),  an  act  to  be  compared  to 
the  raising  of  the  dead  to  life  (xii.).  The  mode  of  this  action  of 
the  Spirit  is  inscrutable  (xiii. ) ,  but  it  is  not  properly  coercion,  or 
a  destruction  of  the  qualities  of  the  human  will  (xvi.).  The  Per¬ 
severance  of  all  the  regenerated  is  positively  asserted  (V.). 

The  Canons  of  Dort,  both  in  spirit  and  letter,  present  Calvinism,  y 
not  in  its  extreme,  yet  in  its  unadulterated,  form.  The  glory  andj 
majesty  of  God  are  in  the  forefront.  The  starting-point  of  the^ 
system  is  the  eternal  purposes  of  God.  The  Arminian  system  is 
an  attempt  to  formulate  a  protest  from  an  ethical  point  of  view. 


340 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


The  end  sought  is  the  maintenance  of  human  responsibility  and 
the  moral  conditions  of  praise  and  blame,  reward  and  penalty, 
while  still  upholding  salvation  by  grace.  But  in  pursuing  this 
end,  the  Arminian  teachers  fell  back  on  the  Scotist  idea  of  the 
absolute  supremacy  of  the  divine  will.  God  is  not  more  bound 
to  punish  than  to  forgive.  The  difficulty  of  avoiding  a  more  or 
less  subtle  form  of  legalism  is  inherent  in  all  denials  of  the  sole 
efficacy  of  grace.  The  Arminian  teachers  in  their  recoil  from 
mysticism  and  their  anxiety  to  guard  the  liberty  of  the  will,  con¬ 
structed  their  system  on  the  basis  of  the  formal  principle  of  Prot¬ 
estantism,  the  exclusive  authority  of  the  Scriptures,  rather  than  on 
the  experience  of  justifying  faith.  The  testimony  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  to  the  divinity  and  verity  of  the  Scriptures  gave  way  to  a 
predominant  reliance  on  miracles  and  other  external  evidences. 
This  is  the  character  of  the  work  of  Grotius  on  Christian  evidences.1 
In  the  Arminian  theology  faith  is  reception  of  the  doctrines  and 
laws  of  revealed  religion ;  and  faith  is  justifying,  not  as  an  instru¬ 
ment  uniting  the  soul  to  Christ,  but  as  an  imperfect  righteousness, 
which  is  mercifully  accepted  by  God  as  if  it  were  perfect.  On  the 
subject  of  Original  Sin,  the  Arminians  taught  that  the  inclinations 
to  evil  inherited  from  Adam  are  not  in  themselves  blameworthy. 
It  is  only  consent  to  them  that  brings  real  guilt.  By  Limborch 
they  are  represented  as  only  different  in  degree  from  the  same 
appetites  in  Adam.  By  Episcopius,  they  are  declared  to  be  so 
controlling  in  their  strength  that  without  prevenient  grace,  restor¬ 
ing  human  powers,  there  is  no  possibility  of  finding  the  way  of 
life  and  salvation  and  of  returning  to  God.2  Thus  the  gift  of  the 
grace  of  God  is  made  indispensable  to  an  escape  from  sin  and 
perdition.  It  would  seem  to  follow  that  the  withholding  of  grace 
would  be  unjust,  —  that  is,  that  grace  is  a  debt. 

The  character  of  the  Arminian  theology  is  illustrated  in  one  of 
its  most  important  writings,  the  treatise  of  Grotius  on  the  satisfac¬ 
tion  of  Christ,  which~was  written  in  opposition  to  Socinianism. 
Grotius  sets  out  to  vindicate  the  “Catholic  doctrine,”  the  ortho¬ 
dox  belief.  The  attack  of  Socinus  had  derived  its  force  from  the 
assumption  of  the  Anselmic  theory  that  the  relation  of  sinful  man 

1  De  Ventate  Christ.  Relig.  (1627). 

2  See  Limborch,  Theolog.  Christiana  (L.  III.  c.  2,  §  24,  c.  2,  §  1-4,  c.  4, 
§  1);  Apol.  Remonstr.  (written  by  Episcopius),  p.  84,  b;  Episcopius  (L.  IV. 
§  5,  cc.  1,  2).  See  Jul.  Muller,  Lehre  v.  d.  Siinde ,  Vol.  II.  b.  iv.  a.  3,  §  3. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


341 


to  God  is  that  of  a  debtor  to  a  creditor.  Grotius  discards  this 
idea.  The  relation  of  God  to  man  is  that  of  a  Ruler  (Rector)  to 
a  subject.  A  ruler  has  a  right  to  remit  a  penalty,  provided  the 
end  for  which  the  penalty  is  ordained  is  otherwise  attained.  This 
end  is  the  preservation  of  order  and  the  prevention  of  future 
transgressions.  The  death  of  Christ  secures  this  end,  as  being  a 
“penal  example”;  that  is,  as  showing  impressively  what  sin  de¬ 
serves,  what  the  penalty  would  be  were  it  actually  inflicted  on  the 
transgressor.  It  is  a  manifestation  of  the  Lawgiver’s  hatre'd  of 
sin.  It  is  not  actual  punishment,  but  rather  a  symbol  of  it.  Not 
being  the  literal  penalty,  God  may  determine  what  other  condi¬ 
tions  are  properly  requisite  for  the  issue  of  a  pardon.  This,  in 
brief  outline,  is  the  governmental  theory  of  the  Atonement.  In 
the  room  of  the  righteous  necessity  of  the  penalty,  or  the  obliga¬ 
tion  of  God  to  inflict  it,  we  have  the  Scotist  conception  of  the 
liberty  of  the  divine  will  in  this  respect.  The  penalty  is  not 
endured ;  but  Grotius  avoids  a  sanction  of  the  Scotist  term  “  ac¬ 
ceptation,”  on  technical  grounds.  This  term  signifies  something 
received,  as  well  as  given ;  and  this  cannot  be  said  of  Christ’s 
endurance  of  suffering.  Calvinists  considered  that  the  govern¬ 
mental  theory  was  not  a  vindication,  but  a  surrender,  of  the 
“Catholic”  doctrine,  —  a  defence  which  gave  up  the  citadel  to 
the  foe.  Grotius  simply  carried  out  the  Arminian  conception  of 
“  the  wrath  of  God  ”  as  His  goodness  regulated  by  wisdom.  The 
motive  of  the  divine  government  is  conceived  of  as  eudaemonistic. 
Arminius,  it  is  true,  lays  emphasis  on  the  inflexibility  of  God’s 
righteousness,  which  consists,  according  to  Episcopius,  in  main¬ 
taining  His  truthfulness  in  attaching  a  penalty  to  His  command¬ 
ments.  But  Episcopius  holds  that  the  sacrifice  of  Christ  is  a 
price  because  God  is  willing  so  to  regard  it.1  The  intercession  of 
Christ  in  heaven  is,  among  the  later  Arminians,  the  chief  element 
in  his  High-Priestly  office. 

The  Arminians  denied  the  aseit.y  of  the  Son,2  which  Calvin  had 
taught.  He  is  subordinate  to  the  Father,  as  the  Spirit  is  to  both 
the  Son  and  Father.  The  Father  is  first  in  dignity  and  power.3 
Yet  the  divine  nature  belongs  to  Son  and  Spirit.  As  to  the 

X- 

1  See  Doraer,  Hist,  of  Prot.  Theology, p.  423. 

2  That  is,  His  avTode6rr]s. 

3  So  Episcopius  and  Limbroch.  See  the  passages  in  Winer’s  Symbolik, 
p.  43,  and  cf.  Dorner,  Person  Christi,  II.  891. 


342 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


person  of  Christ,  Arminian  leaders  favored  the  Nestorian  concep¬ 
tion.  Curcelkeus  and  the  later  Arminians  make  the  agency  of 
the  Logos  to  be  a  “  special  influx  ”  or  “  operation  ”  of  the  divine 
nature.  It  is  an  assistance  of  God,  involving  a  communication  of 
divine  powers  so  far  as  a  creature  can  receive  them. 

The  Arminian  scholars  did  much  to  liberate  exegesis  from 
servitude  under  dogmatic  theology.  Clericus  and  Wetstein  carried 
forward  the  work  of  Biblical  criticism  which  their  predecessors 
of  the  same  school  had  begun.  Affinities  to  Socinianism  which 
lurked  in  certain  features  of  the  Arminian  system  were  developed 
by  the  incoming  of  exiled  Socinian  scholars.  There  was  a  tendency 
to  intermingle  the  two  systems  and  their  adherents.  But  the 
earlier  founders  of  Arminianism  are  unjustly  charged  with 
Pelagianism,  which  they  repudiated.  They  insisted  on  the  agency 
of  the  Spirit  in  regeneration  and  sanctification  as  altogether  the 
predominant,  as  well  as  a  necessary  factor.  The  Wesleyan  system, 
an  English  product  of  the  last  century,  was  evangelical  in  its 
spirit.  It  has  been  well  described  as  “  Arminianism  on  fire.” 

A  remarkable  attempt  to  mitigate  the  repugnance  that  was  often 
awakened  by  the  Calvinistic  doctrine  of  election  is  the  theory  of 
Amyraldus  (in  the  French,  Amyraut),  designated  as  the  doctrine 
of  hypothetic  universal  grace.  The  innovations  which  were 
attributed  to  his  colleagues  in  the  Faculty  at  Saumur  likewise 
raised  much  opposition. 

The  French  school  of  Saumur,  one  of  the  Protestant  academies 
of  theology,  had  for  its  professors,  after  the  year  1633,  three  men 
of  marked  ability  and  erudition,  Louis  Capellus  (Cappel),  Moses 
Amyraldus  (Amyraut),  and  Joshua  Placseus  (La  Place).  Before 
them,  John  Cameron,  a  Scotchman  by  birth,  had  produced  some 
commotion  by  his  doctrine  as  to  the  operation  of  grace,  which  was 
that  the  spirit  renews  the  soul,  not  by  acting  on  the  will  directly, 
but  rather  by  an  enlightening  influence  on  the  intellect.  This  was 
broached  partly  for  the  sake  of  parrying  Roman  Catholic  objections 
to  the  Calvinistic  doctrine  of  predestination.  Cameron’s  theory 
did  not  attenuate  this  doctrine  in  the  slightest  degree,  as  was 
admitted  so  soon  as  his  theory  was  understood.  His  substantial 
orthodoxy  was  allowed  by  those  who  withheld  their  sanction  from 
the  theory.  The  most  eminent  of  his  pupils  was  Amyraut.  He 
boldly  propounded  the  doctrine  of  hypothetical  universal  grace, 
as  it  was  called,  which  was  substantially  equivalent  to  a  doctrine 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


343 


of  universal  atonement.  He  maintained  that  there  is  in  God,  in 
some  proper  sense,  a 'will  or  desire  (velleitas,  affectus)  that  all 
should  repent  and  be  saved.  In  case  all  should  repent,  no  pur¬ 
pose  of  God  would  stand  in  the  way  of  their  salvation.  But  the  in¬ 
dispensable  means  of  repentance  —  regenerating  grace,  following 
election  —  are  not  bestowed  on  them.  In  the  order  of  nature  the 
decree  of  election  follows  the  decree  providing  the  atonement. 
The  attempt  was  made  in  two  National  Synods  to  procure  a  con¬ 
demnation  of  his  doctrine,  but  in  both  cases  it  failed.  He  success¬ 
fully  defended  himself,  and  proved  that  his  theory  was  not 
inconsistent  with  the  Creed  of  the  Synod  of  Dort.1 

Cappel  was  a  Biblical  scholar,  and  by  his  critical  opinions  in 
this  department  caused  a  commotion  only  less  than  that  excited  by 
his  colleague.  He  taught  that  the  vowel-pointing  of  the  Hebrew 
text  of  the  Old  Testament  is  an  invention  later  than  the  Christian 
era,  and  is  clothed  with  no  infallible  authority ;  and  that  the 
masoretic  text  of  the  Ancient  Scriptures  is  open  to  amendment 
from  the  comparison  of  manuscripts  and  versions. 

Placaeus  is  one  of  these  three  disturbers  of  theological  quiet, 
with  whom  we  have  to  do  at  present.  He  was  understood  to  deny 
that  the  first  sin  of  Adam  is  imputed  to  his  posterity,  and  to  resolve 
original  sin  into  mere  hereditary  depravity.  At  the  Synod  of 
Charenton,  in  1644-5,  Garrisolius  (Garrisole),  the  head  of  the 
rival  school  of  Montauban,  presided.  In  no  small  degree  through 
his  influence  there  was  carried  through  the  Synod  a  condemnation  of 
the  opinion  attributed  to  Placaeus,  although  his  name  was  not  men¬ 
tioned.  This  opinion  was  pronounced  an  error,  and  was  declared 

1  A  full  sketch  of  the  contents  of  Amyraut’s  first  work,  which  was  on  Predes¬ 
tination  and  its  Principles ,  is  given  by  Al.  Schweizer,  Die  protestant.  Central- 
dogmen ,  c.  4.  The  end  of  God  in  creation  is  the  exercise  of  His  love.  He 
willed  to  impart  even  a  higher  good  than  Adam  lost.  Hence  the  gift  of  Christ 
and  the  Atonement.  This  is  made  equally  for  all.  There  is  a  compassion 
for  all.  To  every  one  salvation  is  sincerely  offered.  Their  common  inability 
to  accept  it  is  owing  to  the  bent  of  the  will,  consequent  on  sin.  At  this  point 
it  is  that  predestination  comes  in,  whereby  a  portion  of  mankind  are  by  grace 
inwardly  taught  and  enlightened.  The  will,  just  as  Cameron  taught,  follows 
the  light  thus  imparted.  As  by  the  Calvinists  generally,  why  this  saving  light 
is  given  to  some  and  withheld  from  the  rest,  is  left  an  inscrutable  mystery. 
Only  it  should  not  be  said  that  the  latter  class  are  predestinated  to  unbelief. 
They  are  simply  left  as  they  are.  They  reject  the  objective  means  of  salvation, 
the  offer  of  which  is  earnestly  made.  The  resemblance  of  these  views  to  the 
“New  England  Theology ”  will  be  seen  when  we  come  to  speak  of  the  latter. 


344 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


to  involve  in  peril  the  doctrine  of  inherent  sin  itself,  on  the  ground 
that,  apart  from  the  imputation  of  the  first  transgression,  that 
doctrine  rests  on  no  secure  foundation.  Placseus  did  not  consider 
himself  to  be  at  all  touched  by  the  decree  of  Charenton.  He 
explained  that  he  denied,  not  the  imputation  of  Adam’s  sin,  but 
its  priority  to  the  imputation  of  inherent  depravity.  He  held  to 
imputation,  but  to  mediate  imputation.  This  explanation  satisfied 
various  prominent  theologians  who  at  first  arrayed  themselves 
against  him.  The  general  theory  to  which  Placaeus  agreed  was 
that  the  imputation  of  Adam’s  sin  and  native  depravity  are  insep¬ 
arable.  On  all  sides  there  was  held  to  be  a  responsible  partici¬ 
pation  in  the  first  transgression  and  the  derivation  of  a  sinful 
nature  from  Adam.  The  testimonies  collected  by  Rivet,  in  con¬ 
nection  with  the  controversy,  are  clear  on  this  point.1  Placseus, 
in  his  writings,  both  before  and  after  Synod,2  maintains  that  Adam’s 
sin  is  imputed  to  us  as  its  authors,  the  guilt  of  -Adam’s  first  sin 
and  of  inherent  depravity  being  one  and  the  same  guilt.  He  had 
not  dropped,  as  his  opponents  supposed,  the  idea  of  participation 
in  the  first  sin.3 

1  Riveti,  Opera ,  T.  III.  That  participation  is  an  essential  element  in  origi¬ 
nal  sin,  may  be  seen  especially  by  reference  to  the  passages,  in  Rivet,  from 
Pareus,  Musculus,  Viretus,  Bucanus,  Polanus,  Chamierus,  Mestrezatius,  Whit¬ 
taker  (Professor  at  Cambridge),  Davenant,  Ames,  Walceus,  Junius,  Frisius, 
Hommius  —  who  says,  “  Peccatum  Adarni  non  est  nobis  omnino  alienum,  sed 
est  proprium  cujusque,  quod  propter  hanc  naturae  communionem  singulis  horni- 
nibus  non  tantum  imputatur,  sed  a  singulis  etiam  est  perpetratum,”  —  Lauren- 
tius,  Zanchius,  Piscator,  Textor,  Crocius,  Bucer,  Chemnitz  (the  author  of  the 
Examen.  Cone.  Tried).  Compare  the  two  Dissertations  on  Original  Sin  by 
Rivet  himself,  Disput.  II.  (T.  III.  p.  747),  and  the  Theses  Theolog.  de  pec. 
orig.  (T.  III.  p.  824).  In  the  former,  sections  x.-xvi.  (inclusive)  and  xxiv. 
deserve  particular  attention;  in  the  latter,  sections  5,  20,  23,  25,  27,  28,  29, 
33*  34*  42. 

2  Syntagma  Thes.  Theolog.  in  Acad.  Salm,  etc.  Edit.  Secunda.  P.  I.  205  sq. 
Placaei  opera  Omnia  :  Edito  novissima  :  Franequer.  De  Imp. primi  pec.  Adami 
Disput.  etc.  Tom.  I.  p.  161  sq. 

3  The  doctrine  of  mediate  imputation  is  advocated  by  an  eminent  Swiss 
theologian  of  the  seventeenth  century,  Stapfer,  in  his  Theologia  Polemica. 
Jonathan  Edwards  is  a  defender  of  the  same  opinion.  The  passages  quoted 
by  Edwards  from  Stapfer  (Dwight’s  ed.  of  Edwards,  Vol.  II.  pp.  545,  546) 
explain  what  I  conceive  to  be  the  real  meaning  of  Placceus.  The  language  of 
Stapfer  closely  resembles  that  of  Placceus;  for  example,  in  what  is  said  of  our 
consent  to  Adam’s  sin  (although  his  physical  act  was  not  ours).  The  doctrine 
of  mediate  imputation  is  clearly  explained  by  Dr.  H.  B.  Smith,  System  of 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


345 


One  of  the  most  active  opponents  of  the  doctrines  of  the 
Saumur  professors  was  Francis  Turretine.  Though  he  had 
studied  at  Saumur  as  well  as  at  Paris,  he  allied  himself  with  the 
more  rigid  theologians  of  Montauban.  He  became  the  head  of 
a  party  at  Geneva,  which  labored  to  procure  the  condemnation  of 
the  Saumur  views  by  the  Swiss  Church.  Opposed  to  this  party  at 
Geneva  were  Mestrezat  and  Louis  Tronchin,  colleagues  of  Turre¬ 
tine,  and  other  theologians  of  a  liberal  and  tolerant  spirit.  Turre¬ 
tine  and  his  party  at  length  effected  a  partial  success  by  securing 
the  promulgation  and  partial  enforcement,  for  a  time,  in  Switzer¬ 
land,  of  the  Formula  Consensus ' Helvetica ,  which  they  took  the 
lead  in  framing.  They  were  not  deterred  from  this  step  by  the 
remonstrance  of  eminent  ministers  of  foreign  churches,  among 
whom  were  the  Paris  pastors,  the  younger  Daill£,  and  the  famous 
Claude,  together  with  the  distinguished  theologian  of  Holland, 
J.  R.  YVetstein.  Turretine  and  the  party  to  which  he  belonged 
professed  to  regard  with  charity  and  toleration  the  ministers  who 
differed  from  them  on  the  points  of  theology  to  which  the  Con¬ 
sensus  relates ;  they  were  only  anxious  to  keep  the  Swiss  Church 
free  from  erroneous  teaching.  Their  creed  is  leveled  at  the  peculiar 
doctrines  of  each  of  the  three  Saumur  professors.  Against  Cappel, 
they  go  so  far  as  to  assert  the  inspiration  of  the  Hebrew  vowel- 
points  in  the  Old  Testament,  and  to  condemn,  also,  his  critical 
views  respecting  the  Hebrew  text  —  thus  giving  their  solemn 
sanction  to  the  Buxtorfian  grammar  and  criticism  !  Having 
demolished  Capellus,  the  Consensus  condemns  Amyraldism, — 
universal  atonement  and  the  doctrine  that  God  desires  the 
salvation  of  all.  Amyraut’s  doctrine  of  hypothetic  universal 
grace  is  carefully  defined  and  denounced.  Then  the  Placsean 
doctrine,  or  the  doctrine  which  Turretine  persisted  in  ascribing 
to  Placseus,  is  put  under  the  ban.  The  Consensus  never  acquired 
authority  outside  of  Switzerland.  Within  about  fifty  years  it  was 
abrogated.  One  of  the  strongest  advocates  of  this  last  measure 
was  Turretine’s  son,  Alphonso  Turretine,  who  was  as  zealous  in 

Christian  Theology,  pp.  285,  286,  314-323.  (The  Editor’s  Notes  must  be 
carefully  distinguished  from  the  Author’s.) 

An  interpretation  of  Placoeus,  the  same  as  that  attached  to  it  by  his  early 
opponents,  is  adopted  by  Cunningham,  The  Reformers  and  the  'Theology  of 
the  Reformation,  p.  379  sq.,  and  by  Dr.  Charles  Hodge,  Systematic  Theology, 
p.  207  sq. 


346 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


opposing  as  his  father  had  been  in  advocating  it.1  The  Formula 
Cotisensus  was  the  manifesto  of  a  theological  party. 

Another  modification  of  doctrine,  designed  to  blunt  the  edge  of 
Calvinistic  particularism,  while  preserving  its  substance,  was  Pa- 
jonism,  so  called  from  the  name  of  its  author.  Claude  Pajon  be¬ 
came  professor  of  theology  at  Saumur  in  1666.  After  a  short  ser¬ 
vice  he  left  that  place  to  become  a  pastor  at  Orleans.  He  followed 
Cameron  and  Amyraut  in  the  opinion  that  the  change  wrought  in 
the  soul  of  the  regenerate  by  grace  is  an  effect  upon  the  intellect, 
and  not  directly  upon  the  heart  or  will.  The  will,  by  a  psycho¬ 
logical  law,  follows  the  perceptions  of  truth  thus  imparted  to  the 
intellect.  The  adoption  of  this  opinion  sprung  from  an  aversion  to 
the  idea  of  anything  like  a  physical  operation  of  grace  upon  the 
feelings  and  will.  It  was  held  at  the  same  time,  however,  that 
given  this  intellectual  insight,  the  spiritual  change  ensues  accord¬ 
ing  to  an  invariable  moral  necessity,  albeit  the  will  is  active  in  the 
production  of  it.  The  main  peculiarity  of  Pajon’s  theory,  and  the 
one  which  chiefly  provoked  dissent,  was  his  conception  of  re¬ 
generating  grace.  The  Spirit  uses  the  truth  of  the  Gospel  as  its 
instrument  in  effecting  the  antecedent  intellectual  change ;  but 
the  Spirit  also  uses  all  the  circumstances  of  the  individual,  his 
whole  providential  environment.  This  aggregate  of  objective  in¬ 
fluence  is  not  the  same  in  different  individuals.  To  this  aggregate 
regeneration,  where  it  takes  place,  is  due.  It  is  the  act  of  God  be¬ 
cause  the  antecedent  circumstances  are  the  effect  of  God’s  order¬ 
ing  and  are  adapted  by  him  to  produce  the  result.  But,  although 
Pajon  in  words  asserted  that  the  influence  of  the  Spirit  upon  the 
soul  is  immediate,  and  although  he  was  not  insincere,  yet  in  real¬ 
ity  this  assumed  influence  does  not  include  the  exertion  of  any 
direct  action  of  the  Spirit  upon  the  soul.  A  leading  opponent  of 
Pajon’s  doctrine  was  Claude,  a  distinguished  preacher  in  Paris,  and 

1  In  a  letter  to  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  the  younger  Turretine  says 
that  the  Consensus  would  exclude  from  the  ministry  many  excellent  ministers 
of  God;  almost  all  the  doctors  of  the  first  four  centuries  and  a  great  number 
of  ages  following;  almost  all  of  the  Reformers,  a  great  part  of  the  Reformed 
theologians  of  prance,  and  the  ablest  among  them;  a  great  portion  of  the 
German  theologians,  and  almost  all  the  theologians  of  the  English  Church. 

This  letter  may  be  read  in  the  Supplement  to  Bayle’s  Dictionary  by  Chau- 
seppie,  —  Art.  “  Louis  Tronchin,”  Note  C.  The  earlier  letter  of  F.  Turretine 
to  Claude,  on  the  other  side,  is  in  curious  contrast  with  the  sentiments  of  his 
son.  This  may  also  be  read  in  Chauseppie. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


347 


Jurieu,  first  professor  at  Saumur  and  then  pastor  at  Rotterdam. 

A  prominent  supporter  was  Lenfant,  pastor  at  Chatillon.  The 
pupils  of  Pajon,  Le  Gene,  and  Papin,  swerved  much  farther  from 
the  line  of  orthodoxy,  and  adopted  Pelagian  views.  Pajonism  ex¬ 
cited  widespread  interest  in  the  French  Church,  but  the  commo¬ 
tion  would  have  been  much  greater  and  more  enduring  but  for  the 
political  calamities  that  fell  with  such  weight  upon  that  church.1 

More  and  more,  as  the  first  generation  of  Protestant  leaders  ^ 
recedes  intolbe  past,  the~theology  of  those  who  come  after  passes 
into  the  scholastic  stage.  It  is  the  era  especially  of  the  earlier  dec- 1 
ades  of  the  seventeenth  century,  in  both  the  Lutheran  and  the  Re¬ 
formed  churches.  The  material  principle  of  the  Reformation,  and  ^ 
the  religious  experience  out  of  which  it  sprung,  no  longer  exerted  i 
the  same  influence  in  shaping  the  system  as  they  had  at  first.  The  £ 
formal  principle,  the  principle  of  authority,  was  uppermost  in  its  | 
construction.  The  Word  of  God  and  the  Bible  were  held  to  be  ( 
identical,  with  the  loss  of  certain  qualifications  which  were  potent 
in  Luther,  and  not  without  a  decided  influence  on  the  other  Re- 1 
formers,  in  the  formulating  of  doctrine.  The  Bible  was  looked  upon , 
as  an  authoritative  text-book,  from  which  doctrines  and  proofs  of 
doctrine  were  to  be  drawn  with  little  or  no  discrimination  as  to  the  \ 
use  to  be  made  of  the  different  sacred  books.  Such  were  the  rami-  ( 
fications  of  the  system  that  little  if  any  space  was  left  for  varieties 
of  opinion,  and  dissent  upon  any  point  was  treated  as  a  heresy.  \ 
In  the  Reformed  Church,  predestination  was  taken  for  the  initial  ^ 
principle  in  the  systematic  exposition  of  the  Christian  religion. 
The  impression  often  made  was  that  of  a  divine  absolutism  en- 
throned  in  the  souls  of  men  as  well  as  in  the  visible  world  of  < 
creatures. 

A  change  for  the  better  was  effected  by  the  introduction  of  the 
Federal  Theology  or  the  scheme  of  the  Covenants.  The  idea  of 
the  Covenant  of  Grace  seems  to  have  been  based  on  such  passages 
as  Heb.  viii.  io;  ix.  15,  16.  The  idea  of  the  Covenant  of  works 
which  was  entered  into  with  Adam,  was  superadded  to  that  of  the 
Covenant  of  Grace,  which  came  into  operation  after  his  fall.  The 
Covenants  were,  of  course,  not  conceived  of  as  being  like  mutual 
contracts  among  men.  In  the  origin  of  them,  men  simply  act  the 
part  of  recipients.  The  Covenants  are  divinely  instituted.  They 

1  For  a  detailed  account  of  the  history  and  doctrine  of  Pajonism,  see 
A.  Schweizer,  Protestandsche  Centraldogmen ,  Vol.  II.  pp.  564-602. 


34» 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


are  promises  of  God.  In  the  Covenant  of  works,  an  everlasting 
good  is  promised  as  the  reward  of  a  brief  term  of  obedience. 
The  Covenant  of  Grace  is  the  method  of  forgiveness  and  salvation 
through  Christ.  The  scheme  of  the  Covenants,  whatever  may  be 
thought  of  it  in  other  respects,  softened  the  rigor  of  Calvinistic 
teaching  by  setting  up  jural  relations  in  the  room  of  bare  sover¬ 
eignty. 

A  leading  advocate  of  the  Federal  theology  was  Cocceius,  a 
celebrated  theologian  of  Holland,  professor  at  Franeker  and  then 
at  Leyden,  where  he  died  in  1669.  The  idea  of  the  Covenant,  to  be 
sure,  is  found  in  some  earlier  theologians,1  but  it  was  Cocceius  who 
gave  to  the  idea  a  precise  and  comprehensive  form  and  made  it 
current.  Cocceius  divides  the  history  of  the  new  Covenant  into 
three  parts,  or  “  economies  ”  ;  the  ante-legal,  in  the  era  of  the 
patriarchs,  where  the  kingdom  was  a  family,  and  law  was  given 

1  See  Dorner,  Hist,  of  Prot.  Theology ,  Vol.  II.  p.  36.  Dorner  refers  to  the 
teaching  of  Eglinus,  Professor  at  Marburg  (d.  1622).  But  Rev.  John  Ball,  a 
moderate  English  Puritan,  wrote  a  book  entitled,  A  Treatise  of  the  Covenant 
of  Grace ,  which  was  published  after  his  death  in  1645.  It  was  recommended 
by  Calamy,  Reynolds,  and  other  members  of  the  Westminster  Assembly.  This 
shows  that  there  was  “  a  fully  developed  ‘  doctrine  of  the  Covenants  ’  taught  in 
Britain  before  the  time  of  the  Westminster  Assembly.”  (See  A.  F.  Mitchell, 
Catechisms  of  the  Second  Reformation ,  p.  xlii.)  William  Ames,  the  famous 
Independent  preacher,  who  went  over  to  Holland  in  the  reign  of  James  I.  and 
became  a  professor  at  Franeker  in  1622,  taught  the  fcedus  operum.  See  his 
Marrozv  of  Sacred  Divinity  (1642)  c.  x. ,  or  the  Medulla  Theologies,  c.  x. 

There  is  no  mention  of  such  a  covenant  of  w'orks  in  the  Augsburg  Confes¬ 
sion,  the  Form  of  Concord,  or  in  any  other  of  the  principal  creeds  of  the  Lu¬ 
theran  Church.  There  is  no  mention  of  it  in  the  principal  Confessions  of  the 
Reformed  Church,  with  the  exception  of  the  Creeds  of  Westminster;  for  the 
Formula  Consensus  Helvetica,  where  the  Covenant  appears,  is  a  creed  of 
minor  importance  and  of  comparatively  insignificant  authority.  We  do  not 
find  the  doctrine  of  a  covenant  with  Adam  in  the  First  Basle  Confession 
(1532),  the  Second  Basle  (or  First  Helvetic)  (1536),  the  Gallic  (1559),  the 
First  Scottish  Confession  (1560),  the  Belgic  (1562),  the  Heidelberg  Catechism 
( 1 573) ,  the  Second  Helvetic  Confession  (1565),  the  Hungarian  (1570),  the 
Polish  (Declaratio  Thoruniensis)  (1645),  or  the  Anglican  Articles  (1^62). 
Weissmann,  a  learned  Lutheran,  in  his  History  of  the  CJmrch  in  the  Seventeenth 
Century ,  has  entered  into  a  somewhat  full  account  of  the  rise  of  the  Federal 
theology.  He  explains  why  the  Federal  method,  which  spread  in  the  Reformed 
churches,  especially  of  Holland,  so  that  the  systems  constructed  on  this  method 
could  hardly  be  numbered,  did  “  not  find  many  favorers  ”  among  the  Luther¬ 
ans.  Weissmann,  Introductio  in  Memorabilia  Eccl.  Histories  Sacrce,  etc. 
Vol.  II.  p.  698  sq.  Ibid.  p.  1 103. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


349 


through  conscience  ;  the  legal  era,  in  which  grace  was  shown  through 
the  prophets  and  typical  ceremonies,  the  kingdom  being  national ; 
the  post-legal,  in  which  Christ  appeared,  and  the  kingdom  became 
universal.  Cocceius  carried  the  method  of  typical  interpretation 
through  the  writings  and  the  ceremonial  institutions  of  the  Old 
Testament.  The  exegesis  in  its  particulars  was  often  fanciful. 
Although  he  failed  to  apprehend  the  progressive  character  of  the 
Biblical  revelation  in  this  respect,  that  he  made  the  system  of 
grace  pervade  the  Old  Testament  as  it  pervades  the  New,  he 
yet  made  a  fruitful  beginning  of  Biblical  theology.  He  promoted 
the  study  of  The  Scriptures.  He  broke  the  sway  of  the  contem¬ 
porary  Scholastics.  He  was  strongly  opposed  by  Voetius  and 
others  among  them.  There  arose  in  Holland  a  Cocceian  and  a 
Voetian  party.  The  Cartesian  philosophy  which  was  favored  by 
the  Cocceians  brought  into  the  contest  a  new  element.  The 
division  was  attended  by  a  political  antagonism.  A  schism 
was  threatened,  but  was  averted. 

The  Federal  theology  eventually  occasioned  important  modifi¬ 
cations  in  the  explanation  of  Original  Sin.  The  culpable  corrup¬ 
tion  of  the  descendants  of  Adam  at  birth  was  the  common  ground 
on  which  the  Calvinistic  expounders  of  the  imputation  of  the  first 
transgression  stood.  What  is  the  basis  of  this  imputation?  The 
Federal  theory  did  not  abolish  the  Augustinian  idea  that  the  first 
sin  was  generic  as  well  as  personal.  When  the  law  was  broken, 
the  Covenant  was  broken,  for  the  Covenant  was  the  law  with  a 
gracious  promise  attached  to  the  condition  of  obedience.  The 
prevailing  theology  in  the  Reformed  Church  long  continued  toj 
hold  to  the  literal  guilt  of  men  as  partners  in  Adam’s  trans- 
gression,  in  distinction  from  guilt  merely  in  the  legal  sense  oP 
exposedness  to  penalty.  The  relation  of  mankind  to  Adam  was^ 
distinguished  from  the  relation  Qf  the  redeemed  to  Christ  and  the 
imputation  of  his  righteousness.1  It  became  common,  however, 
to  connect  the  quasi  realistic  conception  of  race-unity  —  illustrated 
often  by  the  figure  of  the  root  and  branches  —  with  the  Federal 
idea.  From  this  last  idea,  aid  was  sought  in  explaining  why  the 

1  This  distinction  is  made  explicitly  and  with  emphasis,  for  example,  by  a 
leading  English  Calvinist  of  the  seventeenth  century,  John  Owen.  See  his 
Display  of  Arminianism,  p.  74.  See,  also,  pp.  71,  73?  74?  80.  (Owen’s 
Works,  Vol.  X.)  See,  also,  Owen,  The  Doctrine  of  Justification,  etc.,  Phila¬ 
delphia  ed.,  p.  227. 


I 


350  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 

first  sin  of  Adam  is  imputed  to  us,  but  not  his  subsequent  offences 
or  the  sins  of  immediate  ancestors.  Besides  the  effect  of  the 
Covenant,  Owen  says  :  “We  were  then  in  him  [Adam]  and  parts 
of  him.”  We  are  condemned  by  reason  of  “  the  iniquity  of  that 
portion  of  nature  in  which  we  are  proprietaries.”  1  This  may  be 
termed  the  Augustino-Federal  solution  of  the  problem  of  imputa¬ 
tion.  The  more  modern  view  rests  upon  the  Covenant  alone. 
Adam  is  conceived  to  have  been  constituted  in  virtue  of  a  sover¬ 
eign  constitution  of  the  Creator  a  representative  of  mankind,  the 
kinship  of  Adam  and  his  descendants  being  the  reason  why  he  and 
not  another  is  appointed  to  stand  in  their  place.  They  have  no 
guilt,  in  the  sense  of  culpableness,  on  account  of  his  sin.  Their 
guilt  is  exclusively  a  legal  liability  to  the  penalty  of  that  offence,  by 
reason  of  the  representative  relation  established  through  God’s 
ordinance.  It  is  a  legal  responsibility.  The  penalty  of  this  vica¬ 
rious  breach  of  the  Covenant  is  our  inborn  natural  depravity,  and 
eternal  death  is  the  penalty  of  this  depravity.2  The  Covenant 
theory,  separated  from  the  Augustinian  idea,  gained  acceptance 
more  and  more,  owing  to  the  pressure  of  the  difficulty,  which  had 
so  deeply  perplexed  the  mind  of  Augustine  himself,  of  reconciling 
his  doctrine  of  a  generic  sin  in  Adam  with  Creationism.  Creation¬ 
ism  was  the  received  opinion  in  the  Reformed  Church. 

In  the  Roman  Catholic  theology  the  doctrine  of  immediate 
imputation  has  found  little  favor.  It  has  been  broached  by  cer¬ 
tain  Nominalists  in  the  Middle  Ages.  It  is  remarkable  that  in  the 
Council  of  Trent  the  Federal  theory  was  brought  forward  by 
Catharinus,  the  opponent  of  Calvin,  and  a  man  who  was  all  his 
life  suspected  in  his  own  church  of  being  loose  in  his  theology  in 
relation  to  the  points  which  separated  Augustine  from  Pelagius. 
According  to  Father  Paul,  Catharinus  explained  his  opinion  to  be 
that  as  “  God  made  a  covenant  with  Abraham  and  all  his  posterity, 
when  He  made  him  father  of  the  faithful,  so  when  He  gave  original 
righteousness  to  Adam  and  to  all  mankind,  He  made  him  seal  an 
obligation  in  the  name  of  all,  to  keep  it  for  himself  and  them, 
observing  the  commandments ;  which,  because  he  transgressed,  he 

1  Owen,  Works ,  Vol.  X.  pp.  75,  80. 

2  For  a  clear  exposition  and  vigorous  defence  of  this  doctrine  of  immediate 
imputation  of  the  first  sin,  on  the  ground  of  the  Covenant,  or  sovereign  consti¬ 
tution,  see  Dr.  A.  A.  Hodge,  Outlines  of  Theology ,  c.  xxi.,  and  Dr.  Charles 
Hodge,  Systematic  Theology ,  Vol.  II.  p.  192  sq. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


351 


lost,  as  well  for  others  as  for  himself,  and  incurred  the  punishments 
also  for  them.”1  Against  this  opinion,  the  celebrated  champion  of 
orthodoxy,  Dominicus  Soto,  protested.2  He  distinguished  between 
the  actual  sin  of  Adam  and  the  principle  or  habit  “  bred  in  the 
mind  of  the  actor.”  “  This  habitual  quality,”  remaining  in  Adam, 
“  passed  into  the  posterity,  and  is  transfused  as  proper  unto  every 
one.”  “  He  compareth,”  says  Father  Paul,  “  original  sin  to  crook¬ 
edness,  as  it  is  indeed  a  spiritual  obliquity ;  for  the  whole  nature 
of  man  being  in  Adam,  when  he  made  himself  crooked  by  trans¬ 
gressing  the  precept,  the  whole  nature  of  man,  and,  by  consequent, 
every  particular  person  remained  crooked,  not  by  the  curvity  of 
Adam,  but  by  his  own,  by  which  he  is  truly  crooked  and  a  sinner, 
until  he  be  straightened  by  the  grace  of  God.”  Afterwards,  Father 
Paul  observes  that  the  opinion  of  Catharinus  was  best  understood, 
“  because  it  was  expressed  by  a  political  conceit  of  a  bargain  made 
by  one  for  his  posterity,  which  being  transgressed,  they  are  all 
undoubtedly  bound  ;  and  many  of  the  Fathers  did  favor  that ; 
but  perceiving  the  contradiction  of  the  other  divines,  they  durst 
not  receive  it.”  In  his  theological  writings,  composed  after  the 
Council,  Soto  opposed  the  covenant  theory  and  defended  pure 
Augustinism.  Bellarmine  declares  that  the  Council  intended  to 
condemn  the  doctrine  of  Pighius  and  Catharinus,  who  denied  that 
innate  depravity  is  properly  sinful.  This  great  expounder  of 
Catholic  theology  maintains  that  the  first  sin  of  Adam  was 
generic.  “  There  could  not  be  anything  in  infants,”  he  says, 
of  the  nature  of  sin,  unless  they  were  participant  in  the  first 
sin  of  Adam.” 3  This  sin  is  imputed  to  all  who  are  born  of 
Adam,  since  all,  existing  in  the  loins  of  Adam,  in  him  and  by 
him  sinned,  when  he  sinned.”4 

By  common  consent  of  Protestants,  Jansenius  is  considered  to 
have  been,  on  the  Catholic  side  in  the  seyentegntjh  century,  the 
most  faithful  follower  of  Augustine.  He  read  all  the  writings  of 
Augustine  seventeen  times.  Jansenius  opposes  the  Covenant 
theory  with  all  his  might,  as  being  at  war  with  Augustinian  the¬ 
ology.  Recent  theologians  have  invented  that  theory,  he  says. 
They  could  not  have  excogitated  anything  more  foreign  to  Augus¬ 
tine’s  thoughts,  more  absurd  in  relation  to  his  system,  or  more 

1  We  quote  from  the  old  English  translation  of  Father  Paul’s  History  of  the 

Council  of  Trent ,  pp.  175,  177.  3  Vol.  IIP  Cont.  II.  Lib.  Vo  c.  xviii. 

2  Ibid.  p.  176.  4  Ibid.  c.  xiii. 


352 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


repugnant  to  his  principles. 1  Augustine  held  that  the  greatness  of 
the  first  sin  is  the  cause  of  the  corruption  of  nature  and  of  the 
transmission  of  corruption  ;  and  so  that  “  all  things  take  place  by 
no  agreement,  but  happen  from  the  nature  of  things,  because  the 
children  are  said  to  have  sinned  in  the  parent  and  to  have  been 
one  with  him.”2  “  In  Augustine’s  view  nothing  else  is  original  sin, 
but  concupiscence  with  guilt.”  jansenius  declares  that  nobody  ever 
had  so  wild  a  dream  as  to  imagine  that  this  great  depravation  of 
human  nature  comes  upon  men  from  some  agreement  made  by 
God  with  their  parents,  or  is  propagated  by  the  positive  law  or  will 
of  God.3  Augustine,  he  says,  never  resorted  to  any  compacts  or 
positive  laws  of  God  for  the  explication  of  this  subject.  It  was 
through  the  nature  of  things,  in  Augustine’s  view,  that  the  first 
great  sin,  together  with  human  nature,  pass  to  the  posterity  of 
Adam.4  There  are  found  in  Jansenius  pages  of  argument  and 
warm  denunciation  directed  against  the  Federal  theory.  It  is  not 
merely  the  idea  of  imputation  without  inherent  sin  —  the  notion  of 
Pighius  and  Catharinus  —  that  he  opposes,  but  also  the  whole  con¬ 
ception  of  a  covenant  with  Adam,  entailing  a  curse  on  his  pos¬ 
terity.  The  importance  of  his  sentiments  on  this  subject  grows 
out  of  his  standing  as  a  champion  of  Augustine.  He  considers 
the  Federal  hypothesis  an  innovation  hostile  to  the  spirit  of  the 
Augustinian  doctrine. 

1  Jansenius,  Augustinus  (Louvain,  1640),  T.  II.  p.  208. 

2  Ibid.  p.  2H.  3  Ibid.  p.  247.  4  Ibid.  p.  246. 


CHAPTER  VIII 


THEOLOGY  IN  ENGLAND  IN  THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY - RATIONAL 

THEOLOGY - THE  LATITUDINARIANS 

In  England  in  the  seventeenth  century  there  were  numerous 
theologians  whose  writings  are  worthy  of  respect.  Among  them 
there  are  found  authors  of  remarkable  ability  and  of  unsurpassed 
learning.  Yet  the  materials  for  an  account  of  the  historical  devel¬ 
opment  of  doctrine  are  comparatively  scanty.  The  two  systems 
of  Calvinism  and  Arminianism  had  been  brought  out  on  the 
Continent.  That  issue,  therefore,  in  England  had  only  the  effect 
to  call  forth  a  large  use  of  dialectic  skill  and  of  erudition.  The 
other  .principal  controversy  had  to  do  with  the  constitution  of  the 
Church  and  the  nature  of  its  government.  Of  this  long  debate 
the  same  thing  is  to  be  said.  The  rise  of  “  Rational  Theology,” 
and  the  Latitudinarian  school,  interesting  as  it  was,  by  which  that 
type  of  thought  was  promulgated,  had  no  characteristics  which 
call  for  extended  treatment  in  the  history  of  dogmatic  theology. 
This  is  equally  true  of  that  more  radical  protest  against  the  dog¬ 
matic  systems  which  emanated  from  the  school  of  Deists.  The 
debate  caused  by  the  rise  of  Arianism,  learned  and  sometimes 
acute  as  it  was,  involved  scarcely  any  points  not  already  made 
familiar  by  the  theology  of  earlier  times. 

Within  the  Church  of  England  the  rise  and  progress  of  the  Anglo- 
Catholic  party  is  a  phenomenon  of  special  interest.  Hooker, 
who^died  in  1600,  may  be  regarded  as  standing  on  the  border-line 
between  the  period  embracing  the  reign  of  Elizabeth  and  the  age 
of  the  Stuarts.  Through  most  of  the  former  period  the  jure  divino 
theory  of  Episcopacy  had  no  foothold.  A  prelate  like  Whitgift, 
a  vigorous  defender  of  the  Anglican  polity  as  lawful  and  expedient 
in  England,  had  no  disposition  to  find  fault  with  the  foreign  Prot: 
estant  churches  for  the  lack  of  it.  Hooker,  notwithstanding  his 
2  a  353 


354 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


strong  preference  of  Episcopacy,  and  his  belief —  in  which  he 
came  to  differ  from  his  master,  Field  —  that  it  had  prevailed  since 
the  time  of  the  Apostles,  contended  that  “  there  may  be  some¬ 
times  very  just  and  sufficient  reason  to  allow  ordination  without 
a  bishop.”1  That  reason,  he  admitted,  in  the  case  of  the  foreign 
churches,  was  valid.  xYs  far  as  his  theological  opinions  are  con¬ 
cerned,  Hooker  holds  to  the  Augustinian  and  Calvinistic  principle 
of  unconditional  election.2  Thus  far  he  follows  Augustine,  who 
has  had,  he  says,  “  no  equal  in  the  Church  of  God  from  that  day 
to  this.”  3  God  has  ordained  by  “  an  act  of  special  or  personal 
providence  ”  “  on  whom  [the  Gospel]  shall  be  effectual.” 4  But 
Hooker  rejects  reprobation  and  the  whole  supralapsarian  scheme. 
“  Souls  were  not  ordained  for  hell-fire,  but  hell-fire  for  them.” 5 
He  affirms  emphatically  that  God  desires  the  salvation  of  all. 
“  He  longeth  for  nothing  more  than  that  all  men  might  be 
saved.”6  He  follows  Augustine  on  the  subject  of  the  Fall  and 
Original  Sin.  The  death  of  infants  is  a  punishment.7  In  relation 
to  Justification,  Hooker  firmly  adheres  to  the  Protestant  doctrine. 
Nor  does  he  differ  materially,  as  to  the  effect  of  the  Sacraments, 
from  the  teaching  of  the  Calvinists.  While  he  sets  the  Lord’s 
Supper  in  a  relation  to  the  Incarnation,  the  reception  of  Christ  is 
held  to  be  purely  spiritual  and  by  “the  worthy  alone.”  Nor  is 
there  any  reference  to  the  Eucharist  as  a  sacrifice,  save  the  men¬ 
tion  of  it  as  a  thank-offering.  “Sacrifice,”  he  says,  “is  now  no 
part  of  the  Christian  ministry.”  8  He  earnestly  contends  against 
the  idea  that  there  is  a  Sacrament  of  Penance.  Ritual  practices, 
such  as  proved  later  a  characteristic  feature  of  the  Anglo-Catholics, 
are  nowhere  recommended,  and  are  hardly  noticed.  It  is  not  by 
any  novelties  of  opinion  that  Hooker  was  distinguished  from  the 
Early  English  Reformers.  He  founded  “no  especial  school.”9 

1  Ecclesiast.  Polity,  B.  VII.  c.  14.  11. 

2  Hooker  discusses,  in  his  usual  elevated  tone,  the  subject  of  predestination, 
in  the  Fragment  of  an  Answer  to  a  Letter  (in  Keble’s  ed.  of  Hooker,  Vol.  V. 
App.  I). 

3  Ibid.  p.  580.  4  Ibid.  p.  574.  5  Ibid.  p.  575. 

6  Ibid.  p.  573.  Hooker,  in  the  summary  statement  of  his  opinions  on  Elec¬ 

tion  (p.  596),  evidently  has  in  mind  the  Lambeth  Articles.  It  is  interesting  to 
notice  the  points  of  variation  from  them  (which  Keble,  perhaps,  somewhat 

magnifies),  (c.  ii.) 

7  Ibid.  p.  570..  8  B.  V.  c.  78.  2. 

9  Barry,  in  Masters  of  English  Theology,  p.  59. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


355 


Yet  the  whole  turn  of  his  work  served  to  give  a  new  direction  to 
Anglican  Theology.  The  contention  of  Cartwright  and  his  sup¬ 
porters  for  a  jure  divino  Presbyterianism  had  much  to  do  in  leading 
their  opponents  gradually  to  a  like  contention  in  behalf  of  their 
system.  That  reverence  for  antiquity  and  the  “ Primitive  Church,” 
that  interest  in  the  Fathers  and  deference  to  patristic  teaching, 
which  had  belonged  to  the  English  Reformation  from  the  outset, 
acquired  an  increasing  sway  in  a  class  of  minds  to  which  the  rigid 
definitions  of  Calvinism,  with  its  characteristic  polity  and  forms  of 
worship,  became  more  and  more  unattractive.  These  were  disposed 
to  claim  for  the  Anglican  Church  a  distinct  place  in  the  Church 
Catholic.  They  felt  a  growing  willingness  to  withdraw  from  the 
fraternal  connection  with  the  Protestant  bodies  with  which  the 
English  Church  under  Edward  and  Elizabeth  had  been  so  closely 
allied.  Among  the  founders  of  the  Anglo-Catholic  school,  the  fore¬ 
most  place  belongs,  on  the  whole,  to  Bishop  Lancelot  Andrews. 
Andrews  was  only  five  years  younger  than  Hooker,  but  he  lived 
until  1620.  The  depth  of  his  learning,  Ayhich  he  had  at  complete 
command,  the  variety  of  his  tastes  and  attainments,  —  he  was  much 
interested  in  the  observation  and  study  of  nature,  —  his  logical 
skill,  and  the  sincerity  of  his  piety,  are  beyond  question.  His 
ritualistic  tastes  were  manifest  in  the  furniture  and  decorations  of 
his  chapel.  Yet  he  did  not  take  upon  himself  the  task  of  propa¬ 
gating  his  preferences  in  respect  to  symbols  and  ceremonies.  In 
reply  to  Roman  Catholic  champions,  Bellarmine  and  Duperron, 
he  wrote  effectively  against  the  pretensions  of  the  Church  of 
Rome.  But  his  polemical  writings  on  this  subject,  although 
vigorous,  were  free  from  animosity.  Still  he  argues  that  the 
Pope  is  probably  Antichrist.  Andrews  claimed  for  the  Episco¬ 
pal  polity  a  divine  right.  His  position  is  explained  in  his  corre¬ 
spondence  with  Du  Moulin.  He  disclaims,  however,  the  intention 
to  blame  the  foreign  churches  for  not  having  bishops.  It  was  not 
their  fault,  but  the  fault  of  the  times.1  His  comments  on  the 
Lambeth  Articles  contain  a  moderate  and  guarded  approval  of 
Augustinian  election,  a  subject  on  which  he  says  that  he  had 
never  debated,  either  in  public  or  in  private.2  Respecting  the 
Eucharist,  Andrews  maintains  with  emphasis  the  reality  of  the 
Presence  of  Christ.  Of  the  viode  in  which  the  Bread  is  the  body, 

1  Resp.  ad  Ep.  III.  Opuscula,  p.  21 1  (Lib.  of  Angl.  Cath.  Fathers). 

2  Minor  Works  of  Bishop  Andrews,  p.  294  sq. 


356 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


“  there  is  not  a  word  in  the  Gospel.”  Transubstantiation,  there' 
fore,  cannot  be  an  article  of  faith.  There  is  a  true  “  fruition  of 
the  body  and  blood  of  Christ,”  and  not  of  a  sign  or  remembrance 
of  it.  It  is,  moreover,  a  sacrifice,  a  means  of  renewing  a  cov¬ 
enant  with  God.  It  is  a  commemoration  of  the  Sacrifice  on  the 
Cross,  as  the  Old  Testament  offerings  were  a  “  prsefiguration  ”  of 
it.1  In  the  Sacrament  there  is  an  “applying  of  the  Sacrifice”  of 
Jesus.  “In  rigor  of  speech  .  .  .  there  is  but  one  only  sacrifice  .  .  . 
Christ’s  death.”2 

The  ascription  of  a  sacrificial  quality  to  the  Lord’s  Supper,  the 
sacrifice  being  commemorative  in  its  meaning,  and  not  implying 
any  deficiency  to  be  made  up  in  the  Atonement  made  once  for 
all,  is  not  very  uncommon  in  the  divines  of  the  English  Church, 
especially  in  their  Homiletic  language.3  But  few  writers,  even 
of  the  Anglo-Catholic  type,  go  so  far  in  their  approximation  to 
Roman  doctrine  as  Thorndike,  Prebendary  of  Westminster.4  It 
need  not  be  said  that  he  is  a  stout  advocate  of  jure  divino  Episco¬ 
pacy.  He  maintains  that  the  wicked  as  well  as  believers  receive 
the  body  and  blood  offered  in  the  Sacrament,  although  they  are 
not  “  spiritually  nourished  by  the  Same.”  In  this  sense  they  do 
not  “  eat  ”  the  Same  ;  yet  in  another  sense,  they  do,  for  they  are 
to  be  condemned  for  “  eating  the  Body  and  Blood  ”  without  the 
faith  of  a  Christian.  The  Eucharist  is  affirmed  by  Thorndike  to 
be  not  only  representative,  but  propitiatory,  its  influence  being 
like  that  of  Christ  in  the  exercise  of  His  intervening  priesthood 
on  high,  the  efficacy  of  which  is  dependent  on  the  Sacrifice  upon 
the  Cross. 

With  the  accession  of  James  I.  the  Puritan  age  of  English 
history  fairly  begins.  At  this  time  the  Puritans,  who  were  in 
control  in  the  House  of  Commons,  were  generally  not  hostile  to 
Episcopacy  or  the  Liturgy.  But  they  were,  first,  thoroughly  hos¬ 
tile  to  political  despotism,  and,  secondly,  they  were  mostly  Calvin¬ 
ists,  and  deeply  incensed  at  the  idea  of  any  movements  looking 

1  Against  Bellarmine ,  c.  8. 

2  Sermons  of  the  Resurrection,  p.  457. 

3  For  a  large  collection  of  passages,  see  No.  IV.  of  the  Catena  Patrum,  in 
the  “  Tracts  for  the  Times,”  on  the  Eucharistic  Sacrifice. 

4  Thorndike’s  ideas  on  the  Eucharist  are  set  forth  in  the  Laws  of  the  Church, 
B.  I.  cc.  i.  and  ii.  For  a  full  collection  of  extracts,  see  Chambers,  The  Doc¬ 
trine  of  the  Holy  Eucharist,  as  expounded  by  Thorndike  (1S55). 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


357 


to  compromise  with  the  Church  of  Rome.  The  Anglo-Catholics 
became  the  ardent  supporters  of  royalty.  In  the  mixed  contest, 
which  was  both  political  and  religious,  they  were  easily  drawn  into 
sympathy  with  Arminian  theology.  James  himself  was  lukewarm  in 
his  Calvinism,  compared  with  the  generality  of  the  Puritans.  He 
would  not  have  the  Articles  changed  and  he  would  prevent,  if  he 
could,  the  public  discussion  of  the  disputed  questions.  The  Cal¬ 
vinists  were  everywhere  against  whatever  savored  of  Erastianism ; 
the  Arminians  were  in  favor  of  the  close  union  of  Church  and 
State.  The  defence  of  the  royal  prerogative  and  the  defence  of 
Arminianism,  or  of  neutrality  between  the  contending  religious 
systems,  became  the  common  ground  of  numerous  ecclesiastical 
supporters  of  the  Stuarts.  Puritanism,  in  the  course  of  the  fierce 
contest,  turned  into  a  warfare  against  “  prelacy.”  The  victory  was 
won  by  the  party  zealous  for  political  freedom.  The  Long  Parlia¬ 
ment  abolished  Episcopacy.  The  Anglo-Catholic  party  continued 
to  cherish  its  zeal  for  the  cause  of  monarchy.  The  Restoration  of 
Charles  II.  gave  it  a  new  lease  of  power.  In  the  next  reign,  in 
1683,  the  Declaration  in  behalf  of  the  doctrine  of  passive  obedi¬ 
ence  was  framed.  The  party  suffered  a  signal  defeat  at  the  Revo¬ 
lution  of  1688,  but  the  Non-jurors  did  not  forsake  their  position. 
The  prominent  representative  of  the  Anglo-Catholics  under  Charles 
I.  was  Archbishop  Laud.  The  public  avowal  of  the  advanced  doc¬ 
trine  of  the  jure  divino  authority  of  bishops  is  commonly  traced  to 
Bancroft’s  famous  sermon  at  St.  Paul’s  Cross  in  1589.  But  this 
general  doctrine  was  often  held  later  by  Anglo-Catholic  leaders 
who  did  not  press  it  to  the  extent  of  unchurching  the  foreign 
Protestant  bodies.  Bishop  Hall,  being  then  Dean  of  Norwich, 
one  of  James’s  deputies  to  the  Synod  of  Dort,  in  his  Apology 
against  the  Brownists,  spoke  of  his  love  to  the  Protestant  churches 
abroad,  as  the  “  sisters  ”  of  the  Church  of  England.  Later,  at  the 
request  of  Laud  (in  1640),  he  wrote  his  work  on  the  Divine  Right 
of  Episcopacy.  In  this  work,  and  in  the  Defence  of  it,  he  does 
not  renounce  his  former  position.  In  this  last  book,  he  distin¬ 
guishes  between  “the  being  and  the  well-being”  of  a  church.  The 
foreign  churches  “  lose  nothing  of  the  true  essence  of  a  Church, 
though  they  miss  something  of  their  glory  and  perfection.”  Laud, 
in  speaking  of  the  foreign  Protestant  churches,  wrote  to  Hall,  in 
relation  to  his  Humble  Remonstrance — published  after  the  De¬ 
fence —  that  he  had  been  “a  little  more  favorable  than  our  [their] 


353 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


case  will  now  bear.”1  This  remark  indicates  Laud’s  point  of  view. 
His  doctrine  of  Apostolic  Succession  included  the  sacerdotal  theory 
of  the  ministry.  As  a  theologian,  he  was  a  man  of  no  mean  ability ; 
he  had  no  intention  to  carry  over  the  Church  of  England  to  the 
Church  of  Rome,  although  he  was  not  inclined  to  style  Rome 
“  Antichrist,”  or  to  call  it  an  apostate  (instead  of  a  merely  cor¬ 
rupted)  church.  As  to  the  Real  Presence  in  the  Sacrament,  his 
opinion  was  identical  with  that  of  Calvin.  He  defends  Calvin 
against  the  misrepresentation  of  Bellarmine.  “  Calvinists,”  he 
says,  “  maintain  a  most  true  and  real  presence.”  There  is  no 
offering  in  the  Sacrament  except  a  “  memory  ”  of  the  Sacrifice  of 
Christ,  an  offering  of  praise  and  thanksgiving,  and  a  self-surrender 
of  the  communicant  to  God.  Laud’s  sympathy  was  with  the 
Arminian  doctrine.  The  two  opposing  opinions  on  election  and 
kindred  topics  were  to  be  tolerated.  On  this  point,  he  was  more 
Catholic  than  his  adversaries.  The  policy  was  to  silence  conten¬ 
tion  on  these  litigated  questions.  But  Laud  was  a  lover  of  cere¬ 
monies,  and  a  martinet  in  respect  to  them.  With  him  “the  beauty 
of  holiness  ”  was  a  phrase  denoting  the  externals  of  worship.  He 
was  of  a  hard,  inflexible  disposition.  To  enforce  uniformity,  to 
compel  submission  to  the  ordinances  of  the  Sovereign  was  his 

obstinate  purpose,  whatever  tyranny  and  cruelty  might  be  required 
#  • 
to  carry  it  out. 

In  the  Long  Parliament,  as  the  hatred  of  prelacy  grew,  the 
Presbyterian  party  increased  in  numbers.  Their  polity  was  finally 
adopted,  it  being  an  indispensable  condition  of  effecting  a  union 
with  the  Scots  in  the  conflict  against  the  King.  In  1642,  Parlia¬ 
ment  called  together  the  Westminster  Assembly  to  give  advice  in 
the  matter  of  reconstructing  the  Church  of  England.  One  hun¬ 
dred  and  twenty-one  divines,  among  whom  were  men  of  great 
learning  and  weight,  were  invited  to  sit  in  it.  Ussher  and  nearly 
all  the  prelates  who  were  invited  declined  to  attend  the  sessions 
on  account  of  their  loyalty  to  the  King  and  on  account  of  the 
control  exercised  by  the  Presbyterians.  A  small  number  of  Inde¬ 
pendents  sat  in  the  body.  It  was  after  the  withdrawal  of  the 
Independents  and  the  Erastians  that  the  vote  was  taken  —  the 
learned  Lightfoot  dissenting  —  which  asserted  the  divine  right  of 
the  Presbyterian  system.  The  Assembly  first  undertook  to  modify 

1  The  correspondence  with  Hall  is  in  Laud’s  IVorks,  Vol.  X.  See,  also, 
Lawson’s  Life  of  I.and \  II.  pp.  334  sq. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


359 


the  thirty-nine  Articles,  with  the  intent  to  make  them  more  sharply 
Calvinistic.  They  labored  for  ten  weeks  on  fifteen  Articles,  giving 
to  them  this  character.1  The  adoption  by  Parliament,  in  1643,  °f 
the  Solemn  League  and  Covenant  put  an  end  to  the  possibility  of 
setting  up  a  modified  Episcopacy,  —  such  a  form  of  polity  as 
men  like  Ussher  and  Baxter  would  have  agreed  in  approving. 
The  Assembly  dropped  the  Articles  and  turned  to  the  framing 
of  a  new  creed  and  polity.  The  creed  was  based  on  the  Irish 
Articles  of  1615 — Articles  adopted  by  the  convocation  of  the 
Irish  Episcopal  Church,  the  composition  of  which  is  attributed 
to  Archbishop  Ussher,  then  professor  at  Dublin.2 

It  has  never  been  doubted  that  the  Westminster  Confession  is 
Calvinistic.  Although  it  brings  into  the  foreground  the  doctrine 
of  God’s  decrees,  it  is,  nevertheless,  infralapsarian.  The  “  full 
persuasion  and  assurance  of  the  infallible  truth  and  divinity  of  the 
Scriptures”  springs  from  the  witness  of  the  Spirit  in  our  hearts” 
(I.  v.).  As  to  whatever  is  necessary  to  salvation,  the  Scriptures 
are  sufficiently  plain  (vii.).  God  foreordains  all  things,  but  with¬ 
out  violence  to  the  will  of  creatures.  Election  is  unconditional. 
The  non-elect  He  is  pleased  to  pass  by  ( prceterire )  and  to  ordain 
them  to  punishment,  “  to  the  praise  of  his  glorious  justice  ” 
(III.  vii.).  Our  first  parents  “were  left  to  the  liberty  of  their 
own  will  ”  (IV.  ii.).3  Their  sin  is  perttiitted  (VI.  i.).  The  Con¬ 
fession  sets  forth  the  Federal  System,  and  the  Covenant  of  Grace, 
as  in  Cocceius,  is  extended  over  the  whole  period  after  the  Fall 
(VII.).  The  guilt  of  the  sin  of  the  first  parents  is  imputed  to 
their  posterity  and  a  sinful  nature  transmitted,  “  they  being  the 
root  of  all  mankind”  (VI.  3).  In  the  Shorter  Catechism ,  the 
Covenant  with  Adam  “for  himself  and  his  posterity”  is  given  as 
the  reason  why  “  they  sinned  in  him  and  fell  with  him  in  his  first 
transgression  ”  ( Qucest .  16).  In  the  Irish  Articles,  the  “Covenant 
of  the  Law  ”  is  said  to  have  been  “  engrafted  in  his  [Adam’s] 
heart,”  and  original  sin  is  said  to  be  the  propagated  “  fault  and 
corruption  of  nature  ”  in  every  man  born  of  Adam.  It  is  still  a 
litigated  question  whether  the  design  of  the  Westminster  divines 
was  to  assert  mediate  or  immediate  imputation.  There  is  no 

1  See  Neal,  History  of  the  Puritans ,  App.  No.  VIE 

2  The  Irish  Articles  directly  assert  reprobation.  They  lean  strongly  to  the 
supralapsarian  opinion.  (See  14.) 

3  See,  also,  IX.  i.  ii. 


360 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


doubt  that  underlying  their  conception  of  the  Fall  was  the  Augus- 
tinian  idea.1  Satisfaction  to  divine  justice,  reconciliation,  and  eter¬ 
nal  life  were  procured  by  Christ  for  the  elect  (among  whom  “elect 
infants”  are  included)  (VIII.  5).  There  were  some  in  the  Assembly 
who  favored  the  idea  of  a  design  to  provide  a  possible  salvation  for 
all  in  case  they  should  repent.  Calamy,  Arrowsmith,  and  others 
advocated  substantially  the  opinion  of  Cameron  and  Amyraut,  the 
opinion  of  the  Saumur  School,  which  Bishop  Davenant  had  favored 
at  the  Synod  of  Dort.  They  contended  that  God  intended  to  pro¬ 
vide  a  salvation  for  all,  although  He  had  a  special  intention  respect¬ 
ing  the  regeneration  of  the  elect,  and  that  the  “world,”  in  John 
iii.  16,  means  the  entire  race  of  mankind.2  But  the  more  liberal 
view,  although  not  excluded,  substantially  finds  no  expression  in 
the  Westminster  creeds. 

As  in  other  Protestant  creeds,  the  functions  of  the  Civil  Magis¬ 
tracy  are  defined.  As  by  the  Calvinists  generally,  the  right  to 
exercise  ecclesiastical  discipline  within  the  Church  is  denied  to 
the  civil  authority.  Yet  the  civil  magistrate  is  to  provide  for  the 
unity  and  tranquillity  of  the  Church,  for  the  preservation  of  divine 
truth  in  its  purity  and  integrity,  for  the  suppression  of  blasphemy 
and  heresy,  and  for  the  removal  of  all  corruptions  and  abuses,  and 
for  the  right  administration  of  all  divinely  established  institutions. 
He  has  power  to  convoke  synods  and  to  see  that  whatever  is  trans¬ 
acted  in  them  be  “according  to  the  mind  of  God”  (XXIII.  3). 
The  Assembly  could  hardly  attribute  less  authority  to  the  magis¬ 
trate  without  calling  the  acts  of  the  Long  Parliament,  including 
that  to  which  they  owed  their  own  existence,  a  usurpation.  But 
in  thus  extending  the  power  of  the  civil  authority  they  are  in 
accord  not  only  with  the  practice  of  Protestants  generally,  but 
also  of  their  uniform  teaching.  Melanchthon  is  equally  explicit. 
He  comprises  in  the  function  and  obligations  of  rulers  the  duty  to 
suppress  “  the  ethnic  doctrine  of  the  Pope,  the  ethnic  rites  of  the 
invocation  of  the  dead,  and  the  horrid  profanations  of  the  Lord’s 

1  In  Ball’s  Short  Catechisme,  which  had  gone  through  twelve  editions  in 
1628,  to  the  question  “Did  all  mankind  sinne  in  Adam?”  the  answer  is  given 
“Yes;  for  we  were  all  in  his  loynes.”  See  A.  F.  Mitchell,  Catechisms  of  the 
Second  Reformation ,  p.  71. 

2  See  Minutes  of  the  Westminster  Assembly,  pp.  152,  154,  155,  and  Intro¬ 
duction,  p.  lvi.  sq.  For  further  illustrations  of  the  liberal  view  from  Arrow- 
smith’s  writings,  see  the  editor’s  notes  to  the  passage;  also  Schaff’s  Creeds  of 
Christendom,  Vol.  I.  p.  770  sq. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


361 


Supper.”1  The  Lutherans  went  much  beyond  the  more  narrow 
definition  of  the  sphere  of  the  magistrate,  as  first  set  forth  by 
them  in  the  Augsburg  Confession.2  Calvin,  it  need  hardly  be 
said,  has  the  same  doctrine  as  Melanchthon  on  this  subject.3  In 
England,  ideas  of  toleration  which  border  on  more  modern  views 
were  entertained  by  a  few  Independents. 

The  Westminster  Confession  declares  the  fourth  commandment 
in  the  decalogue  to  be  a  positive,  moral,  and  perpetual  command¬ 
ment,  so  far  as  the  sanctification  of  one  day  in  seven  as  a  Sabbath 
is  concerned.  It  is  added  that  from  the  resurrection  of  Christ  the 
Sabbath  was  “  changed  into  the  first  day  of  the  week”  (XXI.  6). 
The  Reformers,  Knox  as  well  as  Luther  and  Calvin,  held  that  the 
Lord’s  day  is  not  to  be  identified  with  the  Old  Testament  Sabbath. 
They  considered  that  the  fourth  commandment  was  a  part  of  the 
ceremonial  law.  With  the  early  Fathers,  Justin,  Irenaeus,  Tertul- 
lian,  and  others,  they  made  the  Sabbath  typical  of  the  continual 
rest  given  to  God’s  people  in  this  world  and  the  next.  “  The 
substance  of  the  Sabbath,”  says  Calvin,  is  “  not  in  one  day  but  in 
the  whole  course  of.  our  lives.”  The  opinion  that  the  observance 
of  one  day  in  seven  is  an  injunction  still  in  force  he  puts  among 
“  the  dreams  of  false  prophets.”4  Melanchthon,  however,  teaches 
that  in  the  commandment  there  is  a  moral  part  which  still  remains. 
The  part  relating  to  the  seventh  day  is  abolished.  But  the  moral 
part  requires  that  “  on  some  day  the  people  should  be  taught  the 
Gospel  and  the  rites  divinely  ordained  be  observed.”  The  com¬ 
mand  is  broken  by  servile  labor,  and  by  spending  the  time  in  sports 
and  vicious  pleasures,  on  the  day  “  constituted  ”  for  the  public 
ministry  of  the  Gospel.5  The  Synod  of  Dort  recognized  a  moral 
part  of  the  Old  Testament  law,  and  inferred  the  existence  of  “  a 
certain  and  stated  day  appointed  for  worship.”  But  Gomarus,  as 
well  as  Grotius,  went  no  farther  in  their  opinion  on  this  subject. 
Hooker  affirms  that  one  day  in  seven,  or  one-seventh  part  of  the 
time,  is  ordained  for  worship  by  an  immutable  law.  The  first  day 
was  adopted  in  the  room  of  the  seventh,  by  the  Church,  to  which 
in  this  matter  authority  is  ascribed.  A  similar  idea  of  the  Lord’s 
day  is  adopted  by  Andrews.  The  Puritan  doctrine  carried  in  it 
the  obligation  to  abstain  from  all  employments,  save  those  of  ne- 

1  Loci ,  pp.  173,  174  (Base’s  eel.).  3  Institutes ,  IV.  xx.  3. 

2  Ibid.  Part  II.  vii.  4  Ibid.  II.  viii.  34. 


5  Loci,  pp.  123,  124. 


362 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


cessity  and  mercy  (viii.).  It  extended  the  moral  part  so  far  as  to 
embrace  in  it  a  much  closer  conformity  to  the  specific  regulations 
of  the  Old  Testament  respecting  the  Sabbath  than  it  was  customary 
to  connect  with  the  Lord’s  day.  The  so-called  “  Sabbatarian  ”  view 
was  publicly  promulgated  by  Dr.  Bound  in  1575,  in  a  sermon  that 
was  printed  but  was  suppressed  by  Whitgift.  One  of  the  grievances  of 
the  Puritans  was  James’s  insisting  on  the  proclamation. by  the  clergy 
of  the  liberty  of  the  people  to  engage  in  sports  on  the  Lord’s  day. 

A  signal  attempt  among  the  Puritans  to  mediate  between  the 
Calvinists  and  the  Arminians  was  made  in  the  laborious  endeavors 
of  Richard  Baxter,  whose  mediating  system  received  the  name 
of  Baxterianism.1  He  was  not  less  eminent  for  learning  and 
ingenuity  than  for  ardent  piety.  Most  differences,  he  judged, 
grew  out  of  the  ambiguity  of  terms.  He  was  a  most  voluminous 
writer.  He  is  the  author  of  two  copious  and  elaborate  theologi¬ 
cal  treatises,  The  Catholic  Theology  and  the  Methodus  Theologies . 
On  Original  Sin,  he  advocates  Augustinian  Realism.  God’s 
foreknowledge  is  not  dependent  on  His  purposes,  but  is  an 
independent  attribute.  To  deny  all  “  signs  of  imperfection  ”  in 
the  Bible  is  one  of  the  instances  of  “  overdoing”  “which  tempt 
men  to  infidelity.”  The  sufferings  of  Christ  are  not  the  literal 
penalty  due  to  sinners.  They  so  express  God’s  hatred  of  sin  that 
they  enable  Him  to  attain  the  ends  of  government  in  a  better  way 
than  by  executing  the  law.  On  this  subject,  Baxter  waged  a  con¬ 
troversy  with  John  Owen,  who  contended  for  the  judicial  theory 
of  a  vicarious  endurance  of  the  penalty.  Baxter  teaches  that  suffi¬ 
cient  grace  is  given  to  all  to  repent,  but  that  the  grace  of  the 
Spirit  is  not  given  in  equal  measure  to  all.  Where  it  is  granted 
in  larger  measure,  it  is  partly  on  account  of  a  greater  receptivity, 
but  partly  for  good  reasons  inscrutable  to  us.  Election  is  abso¬ 
lute  ;  that  is  to  say,  it  involves  the  giving  of  grace  adequate  to 
secure  the  certainty  of  repentance  in  a  certain  portion  of  mankind. 

As  we  approach  the  outbreaking  of  the  Civil  War,  we  come 
upon  the  first  stage  of  a  movement  which  bears  not  inaptly  the 
name  of  “  Rational  Theology.” 2  A  lack  of  sympathy  with  either 

1  I  have  given  an  elaborate  statement  of  Baxter’s  teachings,  in  two  articles 
in  the  Bibliotheca  Sacra ,  Vol.  IX. 

2  An  extremely  interesting  historical  survey  of  the  whole  movement  is  given 
by  Dr.  Tulloch  in  his  Rational  Theology  and  Christian  Philosophy  in  England 
in  the  Seventeenth  Century.  2  vols.  1S74. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


363 


of  the  contending  parties,  the  High  Churchmen  and  the  Puritans, 
and  a  disposition  to  set  a  higher  value  upon  the  powers  and  pre¬ 
rogatives  of  reason  in  matters  of  religion,  are  its  characteristics. 
From  the  outset,  the  influence  of  the  opinions  and  spirit  of  the 
Arminians  is  obvious.  Lord  Falkland  was  for  a  time  the  centre  of 
a  group  of  able  and  inquisitive  men  who  took  up  this  middle  posi¬ 
tion.  Falkland  was  in  favor  of  Episcopacy,  but  denied  the  jure 
divmo  opinion.  He  disliked  Laud.  He  said  in  Parliament  of 
him  and  of  the  bishops  who  were  his  adherents  that  they  had 
“  defiled  our  Church  by  adorning  our  churches.”  They  have 
“slackened,”  he  said,  “the  strictness  of  that  union  which  was 
formerly  between  us  and  those  of  our  religion  beyond  the  sea : 
an  action  as  impolitic  as  ungodly.”1  We  must  follow  reason  in 
interpreting  Scripture ;  where  God  has  not  clearly  and  indubitably 
revealed,  “it  will  not  stand  with  His  goodness  to  damn  man  for 
not  following  it.”  2  John  Hales,  of  Eaton,  was  a  friend  of  Falk¬ 
land.  His  spirit  is  expressed  in  the  following  passage  from  a 
letter  to  Laud  :  — 

“  For  the  pursuit  of  truth  hath  been  my  only  care  ever  since  I 
first  understood  the  meaning  of  the  word.  For  this  I  have  for¬ 
saken  all  hopes,  all  friends,  all  desires  which  might  bias  me  and 
hinder  me  from  driving  right  at  what  I  aimed.  For  this  I  have 
spent  my  means,  my  youth,  my  age,  and  all  I  have,  that  I  might 
remove  from  myself  that  censure  of  Tertullian,  ‘  Suo  vjtio  quis 
quid  ignorat?  ’  If  with  all  this  cost  and  pains  my  purchase  is 
but  error,  I  may  safely  say,  to  err  hath  cost  me  more  than  it  has 
many  to  find  the  truth  ;  and  truth  itself  shall  give  me  this  testi¬ 
mony  at  last,  that  if  I  have  missed  of  her,  it  is  not  my  fault,  but 
my  misfortune.” 

Being  chaplain  of  the  English  ambassador  to  the  Hague,  he 
had  attended  the  sessions  of  the  Synod  of  Dort,  and  sent  reports 
to  him  of  its  doings.  There  he  seems  to  have  been  by  degrees 
persuaded  of  the  truth  of  the  Arminian  doctrine.  The  saying  is 
attributed  to  him  that  after  hearing  Episcopius  address  the  Synod, 
he  said  :  “I  did  bid  John  Calvin  good-night.”  3  Plales  insisted 
on  the  distinction  between  dogmatic  differences  and  religious 
differences.  The  confounding  of  opinions  with  necessary  truths, 
he  said,  “  is  generally  one  of  the  greatest  causes  which  keeps  the 
churches  this  day  so  far  asunder.”  The  remedy  is  “  mutual  for- 

1  See  Tulloch,  Vol.  I.  pp.  138,  155.  2  Ibid.  Vol.  I.  p.  161.  3  Ibid.  p.  223. 


364 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


bearance  in  this  kind.” 1  Heresy  is  an  act  of  the  will,  not  of 
reason.2  There  may  be  a  schism  when  the  “  schismatic  is  not 
he  that  separates,”  or  when  “both  parties  are  the  schismatics.” 3 
The  foundation  of  convictions  in  religion  should  be  personal 
thought  and  investigation.  The  alleged  authority  of  bishops  and 
councils,  the  real  or  pretended  tests  of  “  universality  ”  and  “  an¬ 
tiquity,”  are  not  proper  grounds  of  belief.  Antiquity  is  “man’s 
authority  born  some  ages  before  us.”  “  Universality  is  nothing 
but  a  quainter  and  a  trimmer  name  to  signify  the  multitude.”4  A 
more  famous  man  belonging  to  this  circle  was  William  Chilling- 
worth.  His  ability  and  fondness  for  debate  remind  us  of  an 
adherent  of  the  modern  Oxford  School,  William  G.  Ward,  who, 
however,  made  a  full  surrender  to  the  authority  of  Rome.  Chil- 
lingworth  was  a  godson  of  Laud.  While  a  student  at  Oxford  he 
was  persuaded  by  Fisher,  an  acute  Jesuit,  to  become  a  Roman 
Catholic,  but,  as  the  result  of  his  thoughts  and  experience  at 
Douay,  he  renounced  his  new  creed.  Thenceforward,  he  was  a 
churchman  of  the  moderate  and  liberal  class.  The  basis  of  belief 
is  affirmed  by  him  to  be  Scripture,  the  truth  of  which  is  established 
by  just  reasoning,  and  of  the  meaning  of  which  every  man  is  to 
judge.  But  charity  is  to  be  exercised  towards  such  as  differ. 
The  way  to  heaven  is  not  to  be  narrower  “than  Christ  left  it.” 
If  instead  of  being  zealous  Papists,  earnest  Calvinists,  rigid  Luther¬ 
ans,  they  would  become  themselves,  and  let  others  “  be  plain, 
honest  Christians,”  there  would  be  as  to  essentials  “  unity  of 
opinion.”5  Chillingworth  was  persuaded  by  Laud  to  sign  the 
thirty-nine  Articles,  which  he  did  professedly  as  “  Articles  of 
peace,”  without  an  inward  assent  to  all  these  specific  statements. 
It  is  remarkable  that  the  work  on  which  his  fame  rests,  the 
Religion  of  Protestants ,  was  approved  by  Laud.  In  this  work, 
Chillingworth  proves  that  the  Romanist  reasoning  on  the  subject 
of  the  seat  of  authority  is  reasoning  in  a  circle.  The  authority  of 
the  Church  in  interpreting  Scripture  is  sought  to  be  proved  by  the 
declarations  of  Scripture.  But  unless  it  is  conceded  that  these 
can  be  interpreted  by  private  judgment,  the  thing  to  be  proved  is 
assumed.  There  are  various  reasons  why  Jeremy  Taylor  is  hardly 
to  be  classified  with  the  men  of  whom  we  have  spoken.  He  was 
a  bishop,  was,  in  his  way,  a  great  preacher,  and  distinguished  for 

1  Tulloch,  Vol.  I.  p.  226.  2  Ibid .  p.  228.  3  Ibid.  p.  232. 

4  Ibid.  p.  250.  5  Ibid.  p.  336. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


365 


his  devotional  writings.  Yet  he  is  in  accord  in  his  leading 
principles  with  Falkland,  Hales,  and  Chillingworth.  He  was  an 
Arminian,  and  on  such  subjects  as  Original  Sin  and  Regeneration 
advocates  the  Arminian  opinions.  In  his  Liberty  of  Prophesying , 
he  is  a  liberal,  not  only  on  the  subject  of  toleration,  but  also  on 
the  whole  subject  of  the  just  foundations  of  belief.  He  says  that 
the  term  “heresy”  is  never  to  be  applied  to  “  speculative  proposi¬ 
tions”  or  to  “pious  opinions.”1  It  means  “a  wicked  opinion,  an 
ungodly  doctrine.”  The  Nicene  Fathers,  although  they  did  well, 
might  better  have  left  the  Creed  undefined.2  The  “damnatory 
appendix”  of  the  Athanasian  Creed  is  wrong.3  General  Councils 
are  not  infallible  and  have  contradicted  one  another.  The  same  is 
true  of  the  Fathers.  In  interpreting  divine  revelation,  every  man 
must  fall  back  upon  reason  and  private  judgment.  Taylor  believed 
strongly  that  Episcopacy  is  the  primitive  and  the  best  method 
of  Church  government,  but  not  that  the  absence  of  it,  any  more 
than  the  want  of  a  liturgy,  should  exclude  churches  from  fraternal 
recognition.4 

Another  ecclesiastic,  who  was,  however,  on  a  lower  plane  of 
temper  and  character  than  Taylor,  the  author  of  Holy  Living 
and  Dying ,  was  Edward  Stillingfleet,  Bishop  of  Norwich,  a  man 
of  learning  and  an  able  controversialist.  When  a  young  rector 
at  Sutton  he  published  The  Lrenicum ,  a  Weapon-Salve  for  the 
Church's  Wounds ,  the  second  edition  of  which  he  issued  in  1662. 
Its  tenor  is  signified  in  two  of  the  mottoes  on  the  title-page,  one 
from  Casaubon,  and  one  from  Grotius.  The  purport  of  both  is 
that  if  men  would  discriminate  between  divine  right  — jus  divinum 
—  and  ecclesiastical  law,  controversy  between  good  men  would  be 
less  long  and  less  bitter.  This  thesis  Stillingfleet  advocates  in 
relation  to  Episcopacy  and  Presbyterianism.  The  liberal  position 
he  proceeds  to  show  was  that  of  the  English  Reformers  and  of 
Anglican  divines  before  his  time.  In  his  later  years,  in  1680, 
under  Charles  II.,  he  published  the  Ujireasonableness  of  Sepai'a- 
tion ,  wherein  he  referred  to  his  former  work  as  written  in  youth 
and  with  “  great  tenderness  towards  Dissenters  before  the  laws  were 
established .”  He  is  not  carried  so  far,  however,  by  the  altered  politi¬ 
cal  circumstances,  as  to  disavow  the  main  principles  or  question  the 
soundness  of  the  arguments  in  the  earlier  treatise. 

1  Tulloch,  p.  387.  3  Ibid.  p.  394. 

2  Ibid.  p.  393.  4  Ibid.  p.  408. 


366 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


The  specific  name  of  Latitudinarians — or  “ men  of  latitude” 
—  was  attached  by  their  opponents  to  a  school  of  “  Cambridge 
Men,”  —  men  connected  with  the  University  of  Cambridge.  Un¬ 
like  the  group  of  men  before  considered,  these,  although  church¬ 
men,  “  belonged  more  to  the  Puritan  side.”  They  were  many  of 
them  graduates  of  Emmanuel  College,  the  favorite  nursery  of 
Puritan  divines,  where  so  many  of  the  early  New  England  clergy 
were  trained.  They  were  appointed  under  the  Long  Parliament, 
and  kept  in  their  places  by  Cromwell.  They  manifest  in  its  most 
tangible  and  effective  form  a  rising  spirit  of  liberalism,  which  was 
more  stimulated  than  repressed  by  the  work  of  the  Westminster 
Assembly.  The  reading  of  Bacon  and  Descartes  was  not  without 
an  influence  in  originating  the  Cambridge  movement.  Of  greater 
influence  were  the  writings  of  the  Arminian  scholars.  But  beyond 
these  agencies,  and  of  chief  moment,  was  the  forsaking  of  Aristotle, 
and  the  earnest  and  sympathetic  study  of  Plato  and  the  Alexan¬ 
drian  Platonists  of  the  Christian  school.  Bishop  Burnet,  who  was 
imbued  with  the  spirit  of  the  Latitudinarians,  has  described  them 
in  an  interesting  passage,  which  must  here  be  quoted  :  “  These 
were  generally  of  Cambridge,  formed  under  some  divines,  the 
chief  of  whom  were  Drs.  Whichcote,  Cudworth,  Wilkins,  More, 
and  Worthington.  Whichcote  was  a  man  of  rare  temper,  very 
mild  and  obliging.  He  had  great  credit  with  some  that  had  been 
eminent  in  the  late  times ;  but  made  all  the  use  he  could  of  it  to 
protect  good  men  of  all  persuasions.  He  was  much  for  liberty  of 
conscience ;  and  being  disgusted  with  the  dry,  systematical  way 
of  those  times,  he  studied  to  raise  those  who  conversed  with  him 
to  a  nobler  set  of  thoughts,  and  to  consider  religion  as  a  seed  of  a 
deiform  nature  (to  use  one  of  his  own  phrases).  In  order  to  this, 
he  set  young  students  much  on  reading  the  ancient  philosophers, 
chiefly  Plato,  Tully,  and  Plotin,  and  on  considering  the  Christian 
religion  as  a  doctrine  sent  from  God,  both  to  elevate  and  sweeten 
human  nature  ;  in  which  he  was  a  great  example  as  well  as  a  wise 
and  kind  instructor.  Cudworth  carried  this  on  with  a  great 
strength  of  genius  and  a  vast  compass  of  learning.”  Burnet  adds 
that  the  principles  of  Hobbes,  and  the  impiety  produced  by  them, 
stimulated  these  men.  So  this  set  of  men  at  Cambridge  studied 
to  assert  and  examine  the  principles  of  religion  and  morality  on 
clear  grounds,  and  in  a  philosophical  method  :  “  all  these  and 
those  who  were  formed  under  them,  studied  to  examine  farther 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


367 


into  the  nature  of  things  than  had  been  done  formerly ;  they 
declared  against  superstition  on  the  one  hand  and  enthusiasm  on 
the  other ;  they  loved  the  constitution  of  the  Church,  and  the 
liturgy,  and  could  well  live  under  them ;  but  they  did  not  think 
it  unlawful  to  live  under  another  form.  They  wished  that  things 
might  have  been  carried  with  more  moderation ;  and  they  con¬ 
tinued  to  keep  a  good  correspondence  with  those  who  had  differed 
with  them  in  opinion,  and  allowed  a  greater  freedom  both  in  phi¬ 
losophy  and  in  divinity ;  from  whence  they  were  called  men  of 
latitude  :  and  upon  this  men  of  narrower  thoughts  and  fiercer 
tempers  fastened  upon  them  the  name  of  Latitudinarians.  They 
read  Episcopius  much ;  and  the  making  out  the  reasons  of  things, 
being  a  main  part  of  their  studies,  their  enemies  called  them  Socin- 
ians.”  “The  most  eminent  of  these,”  says  Burnet,  —  speaking  of 
the  preachers  allied  to  the  movement,  —  “were  Tillotson,  Stilling- 
fleet,  and  Patrick.  This  set  of  men,”  he  adds,  “  contributed  more 
than  can  well  be  imagined,  to  reform  the  way  of  preaching,  which 
among  the  divines  of  England  before  them  was  overrun  with 
pedantry,  a  great  mixture  of  quotations  from  Fathers  and  ancient 
writers,  a  long  opening  of  a  text  with  the  concordance  of  every 
word  of  it,  and  a  giving  all  the  different  expositions  with  the 
grounds  of  them,  and  the  entering  into  some  parts  of  controversy, 
and  all  concluding  in  some,  but  very  short,  practical  applications, 
according  to  the  subject  or  the  occasion.  This  was  both  long  and 
heavy,  when  all  was  piebald,  full  of  many  sayings  of  different  lan¬ 
guages.  The  common  style  of  sermons  was  either  very  flat  and 
low,  or  swelled  up  with  rhetoric  to  a  false  pitch  of  a  wrong  sub¬ 
lime.”  Of  the  new  preachers,  he  says  :  “  Their  style  was  clear, 
plain,  and  short.  They  gave  a  short  paraphrase  of  their  text, 
unless  where  great  difficulties  required  a  more  copious  enlarge¬ 
ment  :  but  even  then  they  cut  off  unnecessary  shows  of  learning, 
and  applied  themselves  to  the  matter,  in  which  they  opened  the 
nature  and  reasons  of  things  so  fully,  and  with  that  simplicity  that 
their  hearers  felt  an  instruction  of  another  sort  than  had  commonly 
been  observed  before  ;  so  that  they  became  very  much  followed ; 
and  a  set  of  these  men  brought  off  the  city  in  a  great  measure 
from  the  prejudices  they  had  formerly  to  the  Church.” 

The  chief  founders  of  the  movement  were  Whichcote,  John  Smith, 
Cudworth,  and  Henry  More.  Benjamin  Whichcote  deserves  to  be 
called  the  first  among  them  in  point  of  time  and  in  the  effect  of 


368 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


his  teachings.  In  his  correspondence  with  Tuckney,  his  former 
tutor,  his  liberalism  is  clearly  expressed,  and  appears  in  its  con¬ 
trast  with  the  position,  as  to  doctrine  and  liberty  of  thought,  of  a 
divine  of  the  old  school.  “  I  receive  the  truth  of  the  Christian 
religion,”  says  Whichcote,  “  in  a  way  of  illumination,  affection,  and 
choice.”1  “Let  all  uncertainties  lie  by  themselves  in  the  cata¬ 
logue  of  disputables ;  matters  of  further  inquiry.”  2  Ralph  Cud- 
worth,  in  the  Intellectual  System  of  the  Universe ,  presented  a 
learned  and  profound  refutation  of  Atheism  and  Pantheism,  and 
a  noble  exposition  of  the  Platonic  system.  In  his  treatise  on 
Immutable  Morality  he  defends  the  doctrine  of  intuitive  mor¬ 
als,  and,  generally,  the  validity  of  ideas  not  derived  from  sense- 
perception.  Henry  More  was  an  advocate  of  free  inquiry  and 
of  toleration.  There  was  in  him  a  peculiar  vein  of  Mysticism, 
which  was  attended  by  the  belief  that  he  had  occasional  visions 
and  states  of  rapture.  One  of  the  best  of  his  writings  is  his  Anti¬ 
dote  to  Atheism.  John  Smith  is  the  most  attractive  writer  and, 
with  the  possible  exception  of  Cudworth,  at  the  head  of  the  four  as 
a  speculative  thinker.  He  was,  moreover,  a  preacher  of  uncommon 
power.  The  Select  Discourses  of  Smith,  published  after  his  death, 
are  the  direct  source  of  our  knowledge  of  his  opinions.  Other 
prominent  theologians  of  the  Latitudinarian  party  are  John  Norris, 
Theophilus  Gale,  and  Richard  Cumberland,  Bishop  of  Peterborough. 

Conspicuous  among  the  distinctive  traits  of  the  Cambridge  School 
were,  first,  their  advocacy  of  freedom  of  inquiry,  their  allowance  of 
a  large  space  for  diversity  of  opinion  in  respect  to  non-essentials, 
their  genial  temper  in  controversy,  their  interest  in  the  cause  of 
toleration,  their  liking  for  episcopacy,  while  rejecting  its  exclusive 
pretensions  ;  secondly,  their  love  of  learning,  their  interest  in  effect¬ 
ing  a  reconcilement  of  theology  and  philosophy;  thirdly,  their 
attachment  to  Platonic  studies  and  Platonic  doctrine  ;  fourthly, 
their  conception  of  religion,  as  far  less  a  doctrine  or  a  ritual  than 
an  inward  life ;  fifthly,  their  purpose  to  found  a  rational  theology 
which  should  avail  to  answer  atheistic  objections.  As  defects  in 
the  Latitudinarian  school,  Tulloch  with  justice  enumerates  three, 
—  their  lack  of  critical  qualifications,  which  led  to  the  confound¬ 
ing  of  Platonism  and  New  Platonism,  the  ideas  of  Plato  and  those 
of  Plotinus ;  a  certain  speculative  fancifulness,  from  the  lack  of 

1  Letters  to  Tuckney ,  p.  48. 

2  Moral  and  Religions  Aphorisms  (547). 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


369 


“ adequate  criteria,  of  knowledge”;  “their  misappreciation  of 
evidence  as  to  the  supernatural  and  spiritual  world.”  1  This  criti¬ 
cism  is  illustrated  not  in  More  alone,  but  also,  although  to  a  less 
extent,  even  in  Cudworth.  Their  positive  work,  we  may  add,  was 
rather  an  essay  to  construct,  than  an  actual  construction,  of  a 
definite  and  stable  religious  philosophy. 

1  Tulloch,  Vol.  II.  pp.  478-488. 


CHAPTER  IX 


THE  ARIAN  CONTROVERSY  IN  ENGLAND - THE  ENGLISH  DEISTIC 

SCHOOL - THEOLOGY  OF  THE  QUAKERS - EFFORTS  ON  THE  CON¬ 

TINENT  FOR  THE  REUNION  OF  CHURCHES 

The  ferment  produced  by  the  Socinian  theology  not  only 
extended  into  Holland,  but  also  had  its  effect  in  England.  The 
Socinian  and  Arminian  writings  on  this  subject  were  the  imme¬ 
diate  occasion  of  the  Trinitarian  controversy.  In  its  first  phase 
it  was  mainly  an  historical  debate.  The  great  writer  is  Bishop 
Bull,  whose  Defensio  fidei  Nicceni ,  published  in  1689,  was  a  ref¬ 
utation  of  the  views  of  Petavius,  and  also  of  Sandius  and  Zwicker, 
both  of  the  Socinian  school.  Bull  sought  to  show  that  the  ante- 
Nicene  Fathers  were  orthodox.  His  learning  was  great,  and  he 
was  a  strong  reasoner.  He  claimed  somewhat  more  for  the  cor¬ 
rectness  of  the  pre-Arian  Fathers  than  the  scholarship  of  the 
present  day  is  able  to  sanction.  Bull’s  later  Judicium  Ecclesice 
Catholicce  —  for  which  he  was  thanked  by  Bossuet  in  the  name 
of  the  Catholic  clergy  of  France  —  had  reference  to  the  views  of 
Episcopius  and  Curcellaeus.  His  last  important  work  was  his 
Primitive  and  Apostolical  Tradition. 

The  Trinitarian  controversy  was  carried  into  the  region  of  Meta¬ 
physics.  In  1690,  Bishop  (then  Dean)  Sherlock  put  forth  his  Vin¬ 
dication  of  the  Doctrine  of  the  Trinity.  His  doctrine  was  that 
in  God  there  are  three  substances  undivided,  each  being  conscious 
of  each  of  the  other’s  thoughts  and  spiritual  states.  This  triplicity 
is  thus  consistent  with  unity.  This  book  was  the  signal  for  the 
appearance  of  numerous  books  and  pamphlets,  mostly  polemical. 
Dr.  Robert  South  wrote  against  Sherlock.  He  denies  that  self- 
consciousness  constitutes  personality.  Rather  is  it  true  that  con¬ 
sciousness  presupposes  personality.  The  opponents  of  Sherlock 
pronounced  his  doctrine  to  be  Tritheism.  Among  the  authors 

370 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


371 


who  entered  the  lists  in  this  controversy,  besides  South,  were  Wal¬ 
lis,  Stfllingfleet,  John  Owen,  and  John  Howe,  one  of  the  best  of 
the  Nonconformist  theologians,  who  wrote  A  Calm  Discourse  of 
the  Trinity.  The  warfare  would  have  lasted  longer  and  have 
become  more  engrossing  had  it  not  been  for  the  rise  and  prog¬ 
ress  of  Deism,  a  common  enemy. 

The  Arian  controversy,  properly  so  called,  begins  with  the  pub¬ 
lication  of  Dr.  Samuel  Clarke’s  Scripture  Doctrine  of  the  Trinity , 
in  1720.  Clarke  was  the  leading  metaphysician  of  the  day.  In 
the  Boyle  lectures  for  1 704-5  he  had  presented  his  Demonstration 
of  the  Being  and  Attributes  of  God ,  which  was  founded  on  the  exist¬ 
ence  of  one  self-existent  immutable  being,  necessarily  implied  in 
the  existence  of  the  world,  and  in  the  implication  of  eternity  and 
omnipresence  in  duration  and  space,  these  being  pronounced  to  be, 
not  substances,  but  attributes.  A  defence  of  Arianism,  to  be  sure, 
in  the  highest  form,  by  such  a  man,  excited  a  commotion.  Clarke’s 
doctrine  was  that  the  Son  derives  His  being  and  attributes  from  the 
Supreme  Cause,  the  Father.  When  the  Son  had  His  origin,  and 
whether  from  the  will  of  the  Father  or  not,  the  Scripture  does  not 
explain.  Several  answers  to  Clarke  soon  appeared.  His  principal 
opponent  was  Dr.  Daniel  Waterland,  who  published  three  succes¬ 
sive  writings  in  defence  of  the  orthodox  doctrine. 

The  same  tendencies  which  produced  the  Latitudinarian  move¬ 
ment  led,  in  minds  of  a  different  cast  and  training,  to  the  develop¬ 
ment  of  Deism,  and  gave  rise  to  the  Deistic  controversy.1  There 
were  minds  less  appreciative  of  the  need  and  the  nature  of  Chris¬ 
tianity.  There  were  special  cooperative  influences,  among  which 
was  the  effect  of  the  Copernican  discovery  upon  the  views  taken 
of  Scripture,  and  its  effect,  along  with  that  of  the  philosophy  of 
Bacon,  and  of  the  new  studies  in  natural  science,  upon  the  general 
mood  of  feeling.  This  new  mood  may  be  described,  for  the  lack 
of  a  better  term,  as  rationalistic.  Deism  in  its  English  type  did 

1  The  old  work  on  English  Deism  is  Leland’s  View  of  the  Deistical  Writers 
(1754-56),  which  is  both  descriptive  and  controversial.  Lechler’s  Gesck.  d. 
Englisch.  Deismus  (1841)  gives  a  full  and  fair  account  of  the  Deistic  Writings. 
Hunt’s  Religious  Thought  in  England,  3  vols.  (1870-72),  gives  a  sketch  of  the 
treatises  on  both  sides  of  the  controversy.  Leslie  Stephen’s  History  of  English 
Thought  in  the  Eighteenth  Century,  2  vols.,  1876,  is  an  able  criticism  of  the 
principal  writers  in  the  warfare  of  opinion,  in  a  spirit  not  unfriendly  to  the 
rationalistic  leaders.  See,  also,  Mark  Pattison’s  Essays  on  the  Tendencies 
of  Religious  Thought  in  England  fro?n  1688  to  1750. 


372 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


not,  like  the  Epicurean  theory,  deny  the  Providence  of  the  Deity. 
It  cast  aside  the  belief  in  a  special  revelation,  and  of  course  the 
reality  of  denied  miracles.  The  Latitudinarians  sought  for  the 
basis  of  the  religious  creed  in  the  truths  held  in  common  by 
the  various  contending  Christian,  or,  at  least,  Protestant  bodies. 
The  Deists  did  the  same  in  reference  to  the  different  forms  of 
religion,  including  the  Christian.  The  value  of  the  Bible  is  made 
to  consist  in  its  republication,  but  without  supernatural  sanction, 
of  the  principles  of  natural  religion,  ascertainable  and  ascertained 
by  “  the  light  of  nature.” 

The  “  father  of  Deism  ”  was  Lord  Herbert,  of  Cherbury.  His 
treatise,  De  Veritate,  which  was  published  in  1624,  was  an  able,  if 
not  very  successful,  effort  to  set  forth  the  philosophical  principles 
at  the  foundation  of  religious  inquiry.  His  principal  treatise,  De 
Religione  Gentilium ,  brings  forward  the  five  truths  at  the  basis  of 
all  religions.  There  is  no  doubt  that  he  means  to  be  understood 
to  comprise  in  this  list  whatever  he  considers  to  be  true  and  val¬ 
uable  in  Christianity.  They  are  the  existence  of  a  supreme  God, 
the  duty  of  worship,  the  obligations  of  virtue  and  piety,  the  duty 
of  repentance  of  sin,  the  fact  of  rewards  and  punishment  here  and 
hereafter.  There  is  no  polemic  against  Christianity,  but  there  is 
no  doubt  that,  with  most  of  the  Deists,  he  considered  all  other 
religious  doctrines  the  offspring  of  superstition,  or  the  invention  of 
priests  for  establishing  their  sway. 

The  writer  on  the  Deistic  side  who  more  than  any  other  pro¬ 
voked  controversy  and  occasioned  numerous  writings  in  defence 
of  Christianity  was  Thomas  Hobbes  (1588-1679).  The  Levia¬ 
than,  which  followed  earlier  productions  from  his  pen,  advocates 
determinism  in  philosophy,  and  is  probably  the  first  distinct  and 
logical  exposition  of  that  theory,  and  one  of  the  ablest  defences 
of  it.  In  political  ethics,  he  contended  for  absolutism  in  govern¬ 
ment,  embracing  the  right  of  the  King  to  control,  by  his  sole 
authority,  all  expressions  of  religious  belief  and  forms  of  worship. 
The  state  of  nature  is  the  state  of  war,  where  every  one  desires 
everything  and  has  a  right  to  everything.  The  only  rescue  from 
destruction,  the  only  way  to  peace,  is  in  the  institution  of  a  com¬ 
mon  power.  Hobbes  recognizes  no  such  thing  as  justice  before 
the  organization  of  society,  and  society  as  a  product  of  expediency. 
Might  has  the  precedence  over  right.  It  is  only  fair  to  add  that 
the  political  notions  of  Hobbes  were  adopted  prior  to  the  Restora- 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


373 


tion  of  the  Stuarts,  and  were  not  first  inspired  by  a  spirit  of  ser¬ 
vility  to  a  reigning  monarch.  Hobbes  enters  into  an  analysis  of 
the  contents  of  the  Bible.  He  concludes  that  the  only  Article  of 
Faith  which  it  makes  the  condition  of  salvation  is  that  Jesus  is  the 
Messiah.  The  extent  of  the  influence  of  Hobbes  is  well  sketched 
by  Mackintosh 1 :  — 

“  The  answers  to  Leviathan  would  form  a  library.  But  the  far 
greater  part  have  followed  the  fate  of  all  controversial  pamphlets. 
Sir  Robert  Filmer  was  jealous  of  any  rival  theory  of  servitude. 
Harrington  defended  liberty,  and  Clarendon  the  Church,  against  a 
common  enemy.  His  philosophical  antagonists  were  Cumber¬ 
land,  Cudworth,  Shaftesbury,  Clarke,  Butler,  and  Hutcheson. 
Though  the  last  four  writers  cannot  be  considered  as  properly 
polemics,  their  labors  were  excited,  and  their  doctrines  modified, 
by  the  stroke  from  a  vigorous  arm,  which  seemed  to  shake  Ethics 
to  its  foundation.  They  lead  us  far  into  the  eighteenth  century ; 
and  their  works  occasioned  by  the  doctrines  of  Hobbes,  sowed  the 
seed  of  the  ethical  writings  of  Hume,  Smith,  Price,  Kant,  and 
Stewart ;  in  a  less  degree,  also,  of  those  of  Tucker  and  Paley ;  not 
to  mention  Mandeville,  the  buffoon  and  sophister  of  the  ale-house  ; 
or  Helvetius,  an  ingenious  but  flimsy  writer,  the  low  and  loose 
moralist  of  the  vain,  the  selfish,  and  the  sensual.” 

Charles  Blount  was  born  in  1654  and  died  in  1693.  His  first 
work  was  Anima  Mundi :  or,  an  Historical  Narration  of  the 
Opinions  of  the  Ancients  concerning  Man's  Soul  after  this  Life : 
according  to  Unenlightened  Nature.  The  design  was  to  raise  the 
esteem  of  his  readers  for  heathen  philosophy  and  thereby  covertly 
to  depreciate  Christianity.  The  title  is  an  example  of  the  usual 
method  of  the  Deists,  who  made  no  direct  assault  on  Revelation, 
but  either  made  use  of  sarcasm  or  irony,  or  attacked  the  validity 
of  the  principal  arguments  in  its  behalf.  Apart  from  other 
motives,  an  open  assault  was  punishable  by  the  civil  law.  Blount 
published  The  First  Two  Books  of  Philostratus ,  concerning  the 
Life  of  Apollonius  Tyanceus,  translated  with  copious  notes.  The 
obvious  purpose  was  to  disparage  and  refute  the  supernatural  char¬ 
acter  of  Christianity,  by  presenting  in  Apollonius  a  parallel  narra¬ 
tive.  His  miracles  are  explained  on  the  naturalistic  theory  and 
partly  by  suggestions  resembling  the  modern  mythical  hypothesis. 
Blount  argues,  as  did  Hobbes,  against  the  Mosaic  authorship  of 

1  Progress  of  Ethical  Philosophy ,  p.  69. 


374 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


the  Pentateuch,  and  in  favor  of  a  literal  (or  physical)  interpreta¬ 
tion  of  the  narrative  of  the  Creation  in  Genesis.  The  Oracles  of 
Reason  were  published  after  his  death  by  suicide.  Blount  adopted 
Hobbes’s  notion  of  the  authority  of  the  State  in  matters  of  religion, 
together  with  Herbert’s  five  principles  and  his  doctrine  of  the 
corruption  of  the  religion  of  reason  by  the  selfish  cunning  of 
priests. 

The  Latitudinarian  theologians  defended  the  cause  of  religion 
and  revelation.  Henry  More  contended  that  the  higher  truth 
taught  by  the  sages  of  antiquity  was  derived  either  from  the 
Logos,  or  from  the  earliest  doctrine  of  the  Church  and  of  the 
Jewish  Kabbala.  Gale,  in  his  Court  of  the  Gentiles ,  endeavored  to 
show  that  the  wisdom  of  the  heathen  philosophers  was  borrowed 
from  the  Jewish  Scriptures.  Of  the  writers  on  the  anti-deistic 
side,  there  was  none  abler  or  more  eminent  than  John  Locke 
(1632-1704).  There  was  in  him,  associated  with  great  upright¬ 
ness  and  a  noble  love  of  liberty,  a  “  rationalistic  ”  tone  which 
belonged  to  him  in  common  with  his  opponents.  His  intellectual 
habit  appears  in  his  political  theories ;  in  particular  in  his  theory 
of  the  Social  Compact.  His  combat  with  Deism  took  the  form  of 
a  revision  of  orthodox  theology,  whereby  it  was  hoped  to  render 
it  less  vulnerable.  In  his  Essay  concerning  Human  Understand- 
ing,  he  defines  faith  to  be  an  assent  to  a  proposition  on  the  testi¬ 
mony  of  Revelation,  the  credibility  of  Revelation  being  first  proved.1 
This  is  declared  to  be  the  only  shield  against  fancy  and  enthusi-. 
asm.2  On  liberty  and  necessity,  Locke  is  a  determinist.  Liberty 
relates  to  events  consecutive  to  volition.  Choice  itself  is  accord¬ 
ing  to  the  last  dictate  of  the  understanding  as  regards  personal 
happiness.3  Yet  it  appears  from  his  letters  that  he  did  not 
continue  perfectly  assured  of  his  solution  of  the  problem,  but  was 
confident  of  the  fact  of  freedom.  As  might  be  expected,  .Locke 
rejects  a  priori  proofs  of  the  being  of  God.  He  presents  an  argu¬ 
ment  of  his  own  from  the  existence  of  the  soul,  and  the  impossi¬ 
bility  that  a  “  cogitative  ”  being  should  spring  from  an  “  incogita- 
tive  ”  as  its  cause.  His  book  on  the  Reasonableness  of  Christianity 
was  written,  as  he  tells  us,  to  influence  disbelievers.  Dissatisfied 
with  existing  systems  of  divinity,  he  had  turned  from  them  to  the 
Scriptures.  The  condemnation  of  mankind  for  Adam’s  sin  is  an 
opinion  “  that  shakes  the  foundation  of  all  religion.”  To  make 

1  B.  IV.  c.  18.  2  Ibid.  8  B.  II.  §  8  et  passim. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


375 


Christ  to  be  only  the  restorer  of  pure  natural  religion  makes 
Christianity  almost  nothing.  His  own  doctrine  is  that  Adam’s 
sin  brought  upon  the  race  death,  or  complete  annihilation ;  the 
race  is  saved  from  this  death  by  Christ,  and  is  continued,  since 
by  Him  is  the  resurrection ;  mankind,  however,  put  under  a  pro¬ 
bation  of  law,  sin  for  themselves  ;  through  grace,  salvation  is  offered 
on  the  condition  of  faith;  faith  is  the  belief  that  Jesus  is  the 
Messiah ;  all  who  believe  —  Locke  explained  afterwards  that  he 
included,  also,  the  condition  of  repentance  —  are  saved  ;  all  others 
perish,  or  become  utterly  extinct ;  the  heathen  may  be  saved  by 
repentance  and  using  the  light  they  have.  The  need  of  revelation 
is  based  on  five  grounds,  which  include  the  desirableness  of  more 
light  respecting  God  and  duty,  and  new  incentives  and  helps  to  a 
virtuous  and  holy  life,  —  such  as  the  proclamation  of  immortal 
life,  the  example  of  Jesus,  the  aids  of  the  Spirit.  The  orthodox 
critics  of  Locke  complained  that  he  had  not  included  in  his 
system  the  Atonement.  He  answered  that  his  object  had  been 
simply  to  state  what  was  necessary  to  be  believed  in  order  to  be 
saved.  In  truth,  he  did  not  accept  the  doctrine  of  the  satisfac¬ 
tion  of  Christ,  but  regarded  his  principal  office  to  be  that  of  a 
legislator.  Nor  did  he  believe  in  the  supreme  divinity  of  Jesus. 
He  pronounces  the  doctrine  of  election  practically  harmful.1  He 
raises  the  question  whether  all  that  Luke  wrote  was  inspired.2 

John  Toland  (1669-1722)  was  the  author  of  Christianity  not 
Mysterious  (1696).  He  went  beyond  the  assertion  of  Hobbes  and 
Locke,  that  there  is  nothing  contrary  to  reason  in  Christianity,  by 
maintaining  that  there  is  nothing  above  reason  in  it ;  that  every¬ 
thing  is  plain  to  reason,  asserting  that  there  is  no  profit  in  anything 
not  intelligible.  In  primitive  Christianity  there  were  no  unsearch¬ 
able  mysteries,  but  these  have  been  introduced,  in  the  course  of 
time,  partly  in  accommodation  to  Judaism  with  its  levitical  rites, 
and  Heathenism  with  its  mysteries,  and  partly  by  the  mixture  of 
philosophy.  He  wrote  also,  Amyntor,  a  defence  of  some  remarks 
in  his  life  of  Milton,  in  which  he  had  been  supposed  to  throw 
out  doubts  concerning  the  canon  of  the  New  Testament.  He 
declared  that  he  referred  to  the  apocryphal  books  of  the  New 
Testament,  and  the  apostolical  Fathers,  whose  alleged  writings  he 
did  not  regard  as  genuine.  Toland  anticipated  Baur  in  affirming 

1  See  extracts  in  King’s  Life  of  Locke ,  Vol.  II.  pp.  99,  103. 

2  Ibid.  pp.  96,  97. 


376 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


that  the  early  Church  was  divided  into  two  parties,  the  Ebionites 
or  Judaizers,  and  the  liberal  party  of  Paul;  and  these  discordant 
schools  (which,  however,  he  does  not  affirm  to  have  been  hostile) 
were  brought  together  in  an  artificial  union. 

Amyntor  drew  out  Dr.  Samuel  Clarke’s  Historical  Account  of  the 
Canon  of  the  New  Testament  in  Answer  to  Amyntor.  The  great 
work  of  Nathaniel  Lardner — The  Credibility  of  the  Gospel  History 
—  was  written  later,  and  without  reference  to  Toland.  (It  appeared 
in  1727.)1  Toland’s  Pantheisticon ,  and  other  later  writings,  man¬ 
ifest  an  embittered  feeling  towards  Christianity  and  a  decline  into 
a  kind  of  “  unscientific  Pantheism.” 

Anthony  Collins  was  one  of  the  ablest 'of  the  Deists.  In  his 
Discourse  of  Free-thinkers ,  he  undertook  to  prove  that  free- 
thinking  cannot  be  restricted.  To  say  that  it  can  be  involves 
a  contradiction.  Neither  ought  it  to  be  restricted.  Without  it, 
no  one  can  ever  be  convinced  of  error.  Collins  was  answered  by 
Bentley,  writing  under  the  name  of  “  Philoleutherus  Lipsiensis,”  — 
a  Leipsic  Lover  of  Freedom.  Bentley  maintains  that  thinking 
must  be  really  free,  and  not  subject  to  the  bias  of  infidel  preju¬ 
dice.  It  may  be  observed  here  that  “  free-thinkers  ”  came  to  be 
a  common  designation  of  the  Deists.  Collins  suggests  that  the 
Jews  may  have  derived  their  theological  doctrines  from  Egyptians 
and  Chaldaeans.  Probably  a  large  portion  of  the  Old  Testament, 
he  says,  was  reconstructed  by  Ezra.  The  book  of  Daniel  belongs 
to  the  Maccabean  age.  Collins’s  work  on  Liberty  and  Necessity 
is  a  very  acute  argument  in  behalf  of  determinism,  with  an  answer 
to  objections.  The  curious  correspondence  between  his  reason¬ 
ing  and  that  of  Jonathan  Edwards  is  not  due,  as  Dugald  Stewart 
suggested  that  it  is,  to  a  use  of  Collins’s  work  by  Edwards.  It 
is  not  probable  that  Edwards  had  read  Collins. 

Dr.  Samuel  Clarke,  in  his  Remarks  on  Collins’s  book,  attacks 
his  conception  of  the  will.  Clarke  asserts  that  there  exists  a 
principle  of  self-motion  in  man,  a  power  of  initiating  motion, 
or  of  voluntary  self-determination.  This  power  is  not  deter- 

1  The  Boyle  lectures,  established  by  the  will  of  Robert  Boyle  (who  had 
taken  part  in  founding  the  Royal  Society).  Boyle  died  1691.  The  lectures 
were  “  to  prove  the  truth  of  the  Christian  Religion  against  infidels,  without 
descending  to  any  controversies  among  Christians.”  The  first  lecturer  on 
this  foundation  was  Bentley.  After  him,  are  the  names  of  Samuel  Clarke 
( Demonstration  of  the  Being  and  Attribiites  of  God)  and  William  Whiston. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


3  77 


mined  as  to  the  mode  of  its  exertion  by  anything  but  itself ;  that 
would  involve  a  contradiction.  It  is  self- moving.  It  is  absurd 
to  attribute  efficiency  to  the  mental  states  which  are  called 
motives.  If  they  had  efficiency,  man  would  be  like  a  clock, 
or  a  pair  of  scales,  endowed  with  sensation  or  perception. 
He  would  not  be  an  agent.  What  we  call  motives  are  bare 
antecedents,  or  occasional  causes.1  Clarke  shows  that  the  oppo¬ 
site  supposition  involves  an  infinite  regress  of  effects  with  no 
cause  at  all.  Moreover,  uniformity  of  action  does  not  imply  a 
necessity  in  the  connection  of  the  act  with  its  antecedents.  “  The 
experience  of  a  man’s  ever  doing  what  he  judges  reasonable  to  do, 
is  not  at  all  an  experience  of  his  being  under  any  necessity  so 
to  do.  For  concomitancy  in  this  case  is  no  evidence  at  all  of 
physical  connection.” 2  The  argument  for  necessity  from  God’s 
prescience,  Clarke  seeks  to  confute  by  maintaining  the  previous 
certainty  of  acts,  even  o’n  the  supposition  that  they  are  free,  and 
by  claiming  for  God  “  an  infallible  judgment  concerning  contin¬ 
gent  truths,”  which  is  only  a  power  that  we  ourselves  possess, 
carried  to  perfection. 

Woolston  attacked  the  literal  interpretation  of  the  New  Testa¬ 
ment  narratives  of  miracles,  and  contended  for  an  allegorical 
treatment  of  them.  Among  the  replies  to  Woolston  was  Bishop 
Sherlock’s  Trial  of  the  Witnesses ,  an  argument  for  the  historical 
reality  of  the  resurrection  of  Christ.  Matthew  Tindal  (1657- 
1 733 )  wrote  Christianity  as  Old  as  Creation.  It  was  an  endeavor 
to  prove  the  sufficiency  and  perfection  of  natural  religion,  and  that 
Christianity,  as  far  as  it  is  true,  republishes  it  in  a  form  free  from 
corruptions.  Among  his  opponents  were  Conybeare,  Waterland, 
and  Law.  Thomas  Morgan,  in  his  Moral  Philosopher ,  contended 
that  the  guides  of  the  Jewish  Church,  as  well  as  Jesus  and  the 
Apostles,  had  practised  an  “accommodation”  respecting  persons 
and  events,  in  order  to  conciliate  the  ignorant  and  the  bigoted. 
Paul  was  the  great  free-thinker  of  his  age.  There  was  a  division 
in  the  primitive  Church,  but,  unlike  Tindal,  Morgan  holds  that  a 
hostility  sprang  up  between  the  two  parties.  Morgan’s  work  was 
the  revision  of  the  composition  of  Warburton’s  once  famous  work, 
The  Divine  Legation  of  Moses,  in  which  it  was  maintained  that  the 
silence  of  the  Pentateuch  on  the  subject  of  the  future  life  is  a 
decisive  argument  for,  and  not  against,  the  divine  origin  of  the 

1  Remarks ,  etc.  p.  9  (London,  1717).  2  Ibid-  P-  25. 


37« 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


Hebrew  religion.  Such  a  silence  is  without  a  parallel  in  similar 
circumstances,  and  warrants  the  conclusion  that  Moses  was  bent 
on  protecting  his  people  from  the  superstitions  which  in  Egypt 
were  inseparably  mingled  with  this  tenet.  Chubb  is  a  Deistic 
writer  of  inferior  consequence.  Lord  Shaftesbury  was  one  of  the 
few  Deists  of  rank  and  social  position.  He  wrote  the  Character¬ 
istics,  which  found  fault  with  the  Gospel  for  making  the  hope  of 
reward  and  the  fear  of  punishment  incentives  to  virtue.  Virtue  is 
its  own  reward,  and  is  vitiated  so  far  as  its  source  is  a  mercenary 
motive.  Bolingbroke  (1678-1751),  in  writings  left  to  be  pub¬ 
lished  after  his  death,  assumes  that  Monotheism  was  the  primitive 
religion,  and  argues  for  it  on  the  ground  of  the  consent  of  all 
tradition  that  the  world  had  a  beginning.  Almost  everything  not 
contained  in  the  creed  of  nature  is  ascribed  to  the  shrewd  inven¬ 
tion  of  rulers,  who,  in  order  to  keep  the  people  in  subjection, 
have  played  on  their  fears. 

It  should  occasion  no  surprise  to  the  historical  student  that  in 
England,  in  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century,  in  the  midst  of 
the  dogmatic  strife,  the  debate  among  creeds,  there  should  appear 
such  a  development  of  mysticism,  mingled,  especially  at  first,  with 
enthusiasm,  as  we  witness  in  the  society  called  Quakers.  Our  atten¬ 
tion  here  is  to  be  directed  only  to  the  beliefs  of  the  followers  of 
George  Fox  and  of  William  Penn.  A  little  less  than  twenty  years 
after  Fox  began  his  preaching  tours,  the  Quakers  were  joined  by 
Robert  Barclay,  an  educated  Scotchman,  who  became  the  theologi¬ 
cal  expounder  of  the  tenets  of  the  new  sect.  His  Apology  for  the 
True  Christian  Divinity  was  published  in  1675.  The  Catechism 
and  Confession  of  Faith,  drawn  up  by  Barclay,  were  adopted  by  the 
sect.  The  central,  conspicuous  peculiarity  in  the  theology  of  the 
Quakers  was  the  doctrine  of  “  the  inner  light.”  The  reformers 
had  carefully  guarded  against  the  introduction  of  teaching  resting 
upon  subjective  feeling  by  insisting  that  it  is  the  office  of  the 
Spirit  to  make  the  truths  in  Sc7'ipture  evident  and  duly  impressive 
on  the  minds  of  men.  The  Quakers  enlarged  the  function  of  the 
Spirit  by  the  doctrine  that  this  illuminating  power  is  bestowed  on 
all  men,  and  that  it  is  not  confined  to  the  use  of  truth  already 
believed,  but  may  communicate  additional  truth  to  the  mind  open 
to  receive  it.  As  the  Bible  is  from  God,  the  Bible  is  the  umpire, 
so  far  that  nothing  contrary  to  Scripture  can  be  accepted  as  com¬ 
ing  from  Him.  In  keeping  with  this  idea  concerning  the  Spirit 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


379 


was  the  doctrine  of  the  Quakers  that  redemption,  although  object¬ 
ive,  is  of  no  value  until  there  follows  a  mystical  reception  of  Christ 
by  the  soul.  This  is  an  essential  side  of  Justification.  The  dis.- 
carding  of  the  Sacraments  altogether  is  another  natural  conse¬ 
quence  of  the  controlling  place  of  the  subjective  factor  in  the 
religious  life.  It  was  held  that  there  is  a  transmitted  seed  of  evil 
in  men  since  the  Fall,  but  it  is  not  reckoned  to  our  account  as  sin 
until  actual  transgression  is  connected  with  it.  Election  is  rejected, 
although  in  some  cases  Grace  is  said  to  act  with  an  irresistible 
power.  But  all  have  their  time  of  visitation  when  they  are  inwardly 
called  by  Christ  and  are  able  to  hear  and  obey  the  call.  The 
equal  position  of  women  and  their  privilege  of  taking  part  in 
religious  meetings  is  an  inference  from  the  view  taken  of  depend¬ 
ence  upon  the  Spirit  as  choosing  for  his  organs  whom  he  will.  The 
same  is  true  of  the  refusal  to  permit  an  order  of  ministers  to  exist 
or  a  liturgy  to  be  used.  The  discarding  of  oaths,  the  ceasing  to 
use  the  names  of  the  months  and  days  which  are  of  heathen  origin, 
the  use  of  Christian  names  in  converse  with  others,  and  the  adhe¬ 
rence  to  modes  of  dress  which  fashion  has  set  aside,  are  all  parts  of 
a  certain  simplicity  which  is  congenial  with  the  spirit  of  Quakerism. 
The  same  literal  intepretation  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  which 
appears  in  various  customs,  operates,  in  conjunction  with  a  domi¬ 
nant  spirit  of  Christian  kindness,  to  give  rise  to  an  absolute  con¬ 
demnation  of  all  war,  whether  offensive  or  defensive. 

The  seventeenth  century,  the  period  of  theological  warfare  and 
division,  witnessed  efforts  in  behalf  of  the  reunion  of  sundered 
andhostlle  churches!  Persistent  efforts  were  made  to  bring  to 
pass  a  good  understanding  and  union  between  the  Lutherans  and 
the  Reformed.  In  these  efforts,  George  Calixtus  and  the  theo¬ 
logians  of  Helmstadt  earnestly  engaged.  Such  attempts  proved 
abortive.  They  were  resisted  generally  by  the  Lutherans.  The 
same  result  followed  projects  of  this  kind  looking  to  a  reunion  of 
the  Protestants  and  the  Roman  Catholics.  Erasmus  had  con¬ 
tended  for  Christian  union  on  the  basis  of  a  common  acceptance 
of  essential  truths,  all  minor  points  being  waived,  or  postponed, 
not  until  “the  next  general  council,”  but  until  the  future  life. 
Calixtus  labored  in  the  cause  of  a  reunion  on  the  basis  of  the 
Scriptures  and  of  the  Church  of  the  first  five  centuries.  The  con¬ 
ciliatory  spirit  of  Erasmus  and  Melanchthon  was  revived  in  Hugo 
Grotius.  By  his  own  observation  of  the  bitterness  and  calamities 


380 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


incident  to  the  conflicts  of  party,  and  affected  by  his  intercourse 
with  Roman  Catholics  during  his  sojourn  in  France,  he  was  moved 
to  exert  himself  to  bring  to  pass  a  reconciliation  between  the  two 
great  divisions  of  the  Western  Church.  In  his  publications,  he 
sought  to  mitigate  the  enmity  to  Roman  Catholic  dogmas  by 
showing  that  more  than  one  interpretation  might  be  attached  to 
them.  Certain  practices  that  were  condemned  by  Protestants 
might  be  admitted  without  wrong  or  harm.  His  method  of  union 
was  to  ascertain  by  a  universal  council  the  propositions  on  which 
all  Christians  could  unite,  and  to  make  the  resulting  creed  the 
basis  of  ecclesiastical  unity.  On  the  Catholic  side,  Spinola,  a 
theologian  of  Vienna,  engaged  in  a  like  undertaking,  and  travelled 
through  Germany  in  order  to  further  it.  This  movement  was  the 
occasion  of  a  correspondence  between  Molanus,  a  Lutheran  theo¬ 
logian,  and,  afterwards,  Leibnitz,  on  the  one  side,  and  Bossuet  on 
the  other.  The  ground  that  Leibnitz  took  was  almost  the  same 
as  that  taken  by  Grotius.  Both  were  willing  to  concede  a  primacy 
to  the  Bishop  of  Rome.  The  point  on  which  Leibnitz  and  Bos¬ 
suet  could  not  agree  was  the  authority  of  the  Council  of  Trent. 
It  is  interesting  to  observe,  in  the  pacific  writings  both  of  Grotius 
and  Leibnitz,  how  the  sharp  antagonism  to  the  tenets  of  Rome, 
which  had  formerly  prevailed,  is  blunted.  The  mutual  intolerance 
of  the  Protestant  sects,  the  evils  of  perpetual  discord  between 
them,  and  of  the  perpetual  contest  between  Protestantism  and 
Romanism,  had  inspired  a  longing  for  peace  on  the  basis  of  a 
comprehensive  standard  of  belief. 


PERIOD  V 


THEOLOGY  AS  AFFECTED  BY  MODERN  PHILOSOPHY  AND 

SCIENTIFIC  RESEARCHES 

From  the  Philosophy  of  Locke  and  Leibnitz  to  the  Present 


- tot - 

CHAPTER  I 

PHILOSOPHY  ON  THE  CONTINENT  AFTER  DESCARTES  :  SPINOZA  ; 
LEIBNITZ  —  PHILOSOPHY  IN  ENGLAND  :  FRANCIS  BACON  ;  LOCKE  j 

BERKELEY  j  HUME  ;  REID - THE  WRITINGS  OF  BUTLER  AND  PALEY 

- CHARACTER  OF  ENGLISH  THEOLOGY  TO  THE  MIDDLE  OF  THE 

EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY - THE  WESLEYAN  THEOLOGY 

To  find  the  beginning  of  the  new  epoch  in  the  history  of 
philosophy  when  its  independence  of  theology  was  asserted,  we 
must  go  back  to  Descartes.  Instead  of  starting  with  the  assump¬ 
tion  of  a  multiplicity  of  beliefs  respecting  things  mundane  and 
divine,  philosophy,  he  taught,  begins  with  universal  doubt,  and 
searches  for  a  primal  principle,  something  evident  and  undeniable. 
This  is  the  proposition,  “  I  think  and  therefore  I  am,”  which  is 
not  a  syllogism,  but  the  implication  of  the  being  of  the  thinker  in 
the  act  of  thought.  To  say  that  I  doubt  that  I  think  is  a  self- 
contradiction.  No  other  statement  respecting  myself  has  this 
character.  The  criterion  of  truth  is  the  clearness  and  distinctness 
of  the  idea.  This  is  inferred  from  the  character  of  the  basal  con¬ 
viction.  Next,  in  the  order  of  the  objects  of  knowledge,  is  God. 
The  highest  and  clearest  of  all  our  ideas  is  that  of  God,  the  abso¬ 
lutely  perfect  being.  This  is  not  derived  from  the  senses,  nor  is 
it  formed  by  an  act  of  my  own.  It  must  be  implanted  by  the 
infinite  Being  Himself.  It  is  an  innate  idea.  God’s  existence, 
moreover,  is  involved  in  the  concept  of  God,  from  which  necessary 

381 


382 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


existence  is  inseparable.  The  Anselmic  argument  is  presented  in 
a  modified  form.  Besides,  the  idea  of  the  supreme  perfection  of 
God,  including  His  veracity,  cannot  be  an  idea  of  our  own  devis¬ 
ing.  The  veracity  of  God,  once  ascertained,  establishes  the  truth 
of  our  perceptions  of  the  outward  world.  He  cannot  deceive  us. 
So  we  are  saved  from  solipsism.  We  are  sure  of  the  existence  of 
other  beings  than  ourselves.  The  soul  and  external  things  are 
substances  in  the  imperfect  sense  that  they  are  not  dependent  upon 
one  another.  God  alone  is  substance  in  the  strict  sense,  His 
existence  not  being  conditioned  on  the  existence  of  anything  else, 
Finite  substances  are  the  mind,  the  thinking  substance,  and  ex¬ 
tended  substance,  or  body.  How  the  first  finite  substance  can 
cognize  the  second,  which  is  essentially  distinct  from  it,  is  one  of 
the  cardinal  problems  of  which  the  efforts  of  Descartes  afford  no 
satisfactory  solution. 

To  supply  this  defect, .to  build  a  bridge  between  the  subject  and 
the  object,  was  the  endeavor  of  the  “  Occasionalists,”  first  Geu¬ 
lincx,  and  especially  Malebranche.  The  former  supposes  imme¬ 
diate  acts  of  God  whereby,  for  example,  the  movements  of  my 
body  are  matched  to  my  volitions.  Malebranche’s  doctrine  was 
that  “  we  see  all  things  in  God.”  All  things  are  contained  in  a 
spiritual  or  ideal  way  in  God.  So  closely  are  we  united  to  Him 
that  through  Him  we  behold  things  even  as  He  does.  Ideas,  as 
well  as  we  ourselves,  are  in  God,  who  is  the  universal  reason.  We 
see  things  as  God  sees  them. 

It  was  a  difficulty,  in  the  system  of  Descartes,  to  explain  how 
finite  substances  can  be  distinct  from  the  substance  in  the  strict 
sense  of  the  word.  It  was  a  difficulty,  in  the  system  of  Male¬ 
branche,  to  avoid  falling  into  a  pantheistic  idealism  and  merging 
the  finite  mind  in  the  infinite.  But  both  philosophers  stood  firmly 
on  the  ground  of  theism. 

Spinoza  converted  Cartesian  principles  into  an  explicit  panthe¬ 
ism,  in  which  there  is  only  one  substance  —  una  et  unica  substan¬ 
tia  —  the  infinite  being.  Substantial  existence  belongs  to  nothing 
finite.  To  that  being,  as  infinite,  no  predicates  can,  without  con¬ 
tradiction,  be  attached;  for  “  all  determination”  —  all  affirmation 
of  qualities  —  “is  negation,”  or  the  subtraction  of  their  opposites. 
Yet  two  “  attributes  ”  are  assigned  to  the  infinite  being,  thought 
and  extension,  whence  comes  the  double  theophany,  mind,  on  the 
one  hand,  and  material  things,  on  the  other.  All  concrete  things 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


383 


are  “  modes”  of  these  attributes.  How  the  ascription  of  attributes 
is  consistent  with  the  above-stated  maxim  is  still  a  puzzle  and  a 
subject  of  controversy  among  the  interpreters  of  Spinoza.  The 
conception  of  infinitude  excludes  personality.  With  personality, 
of  course,  design,  final  causes,  vanish.  The  consciousness  of  free¬ 
dom  in  man  is  an  illusion  which  is  owing  to  a  failure  to  perceive 
the  proximate  causes  of  choice.  If  religion  is  the  communion  of 
person  with  person,  religion  disappears  in  Spinoza’s  system ;  and 
the  same  fate  must  befall  ethics,  if  moral  liberty  be  the  condition 
of  responsibility.  Spinoza  was  a  Hebrew  by  birth,  but  was  cast 
out  of  the  synagogue  for  heresy.  His  ideas  respecting  the  Script¬ 
ures  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  his  interpretations,  are  presented 
with  acuteness  in  the  Tractatus  Theologico-politicus ,  wherein  not  a 
few  modern  critical  theories  and  judgments  are  anticipated. 

Leibnitz  (1646-1716),  whose  genius  and  versatility  almost 
make  him  a  peer  of  Aristotle,  constructed  a  philosophy,  the 
antipode  of  Spinoza’s  system.  Substance  is  characterized  by 
activity.  Instead  of  there  being  but  one  substance,  the  universe 
is  composed  of  a  multitude  of  created  substances,  which  are 
indivisible,  unextended  centres  of  force.  Each  is  independent 
of  the  others,  yet  related  to  all.  Each  represents  in  itself  all 
others,  and  is,  so  to  speak,  a  mirror  of  the  universe.  Obscure 
states  of  representation  or  perception  pertain  to  the  lower  orders 
of  monads.  In  inorganic  nature,  this  representation  is  com¬ 
pared  to  a  state  of  slumber.  There  is  in  nature  a  harmony  in 
the  action  of  the  monads  which  is  preestablished  by  the  Creator, 
and  there  is  a  constant  co-working  of  God  ( concursus  Dei ) ,  which 
is  not  destructive  of  second  causes.  The  soul  is  a  monad,  inde¬ 
pendent  of  the  body,  but  the  two  coincide  —  as  when  the  arm  is 
raised  by  a  volition  —  through  the  preestablished  harmony.  The 
mind  produces,  on  the  condition  of  experience,  the  intuitions. 
To  the  maxim,  “  There  is  nothing  in  intellect  that  was  not  pre¬ 
viously  in  sense,”  Leibnitz  added  the  qualifying  clause,  “  save  the 
intellect  itself” — prater  intellectum  ipsuin.  In  his  doctrine  of 
the  will,  Leibnitz  was  a  determinist. 

In  his  Theodicy ,  Leibnitz  discusses,  with  great  ability  and  learn¬ 
ing,  the  problem  of  evil.  Why  is  evil  permitted  by  the  Almighty 
to  exist?  The  question  turns  finally  on  the  ground  of  the  per¬ 
mission  of  moral  evil.  The  answer  is  that  the  system  which,  in 
the  nature  of  things ,  is  the  best  possible ,  involves  the  permission 


3§4 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


of  sin.  Its  existence,  therefore,  constitutes  no  objection  to  the 
doctrine  of  God’s  omnipotence  or  benevolence.  The  occasion  of 
sin  is  owing  to  the  metaphysical  imperfections  of  man.  Being 
finite,  he  is  liable  to  over- vivid  impressions  from  objects  near  at 
hand,  or  otherwise  exerting  an  undue  attraction.  He  does  not 
attempt  to  explicate  the  actuality  of  sin,  which  is  a  voluntary  act, 
but  only  its  possibility } 

If  the  tendencies  of  philosophy  on  the  continent  were  towards 
idealism,  the  drift  of  English  philosophy  was  in  the  opposite 
direction.  If,  in  the  one  case,  a  gate  was  opened  that  might  lead 
off  in  the  direction  of  an  ideal  pantheism,  in  the  latter  case  a  way 
was  left  open  in  the  direction  of  materialism.  It  was  the  object 
of  Bacon  to  cast  aside  a  speculative  and  conjectural  study  of 
nature,  and  to  turn  inquiries  into  the  sure  and  alone  fruitful  path 
of  induction.  Instead  of  taking  for  a  torch  to  light  his  way  the 
idea  of  final  causes,  the  student  was  diligently  to  explore  for 
secondary  or  efficient  causes.  But  it  was  the  handling  of  final 
causes  in  Physics  to  which  Bacon  objected,  and  not  in  “  Meta¬ 
physic,”  nor  did  he  think  of  denying  their  reality  in  the  scheme 
of  nature.2  As  for  theology,  he  says,  it  “  ought  to  be  derived 
from  the  Word  and  works  of  God,  and  not  from  the  light  of 
nature  or  the  dictates  of  reason.” 3  “We  are  to  believe  His  Word, 
though  we  find  a  reluctation  in  our  reason,”  just  as  we  obey  His 
law  when  our  wills  are  reluctant.4 

If  the  actual  influence  of  Bacon’s  writings  was  in  favor  of  an 
empirical  philosophy,  Locke  was  understood  to  propound  a  system 
in  which  this  philosophy  is  formulated.  The  sources  of  our  knowl¬ 
edge  are  declared  to  be  two,  —  sensation  and  reflection,  the  one  a 
perception  of  external  phenomena,  the  other  a  perception  of  that 
which  is  within.  Of  these  two  fountains  of  knowledge,  sensation 
is  the  first.  The  mind  is  like  a  blank  sheet  of  paper  on  which  are 
written  the  things  that  are  perceived.  There  are  no  innate  ideas. 
But  when  we  proceed  with  the  study  of  Locke’s  Essay  and  exam¬ 
ine  his  Letter  to  Stillingfleet,  we  find  that  it  is  not  his  intention  to 
deny  either  that  intuitions  (as  of  cause  and  effect,  etc.)  are  from 
an  inward  source,  or  to  call  in  question  their  validity.  In  truth, 
both  Locke  and  the  advocates  of  the  doctrine  of  innate  ideas  failed 

1  See  Jul.  Muller,  Lehre  v.  d.  Siinde ,  Vol.  I.  p.  578. 

2  De  Augment.  B.  III.  Works  (Boston,  1864),  Vol.  VIII.  p.  508. 

3  Ibid.  B.  IX.  Vol.  IX.  p.  334.  ^  Ibid  p.  346i 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


385 


adequately  to  define  their  meaning.  Locke  understands  the  phrase 
to  denote  ideas  of  which  we  are  conscious,  holding  that  there  are 
none  others.  The  Cartesians  mean  by  it  simply  that  the  intui¬ 
tions  are  potentially  in  the  mind  from  the  beginning,  although  not 
elicited  save  on  the  condition  of  experience.  There  is  a  light 
of  reason,  Locke  teaches,  or  irresistible  knowledge  which  is  self- 
evident,  and  on  which  demonstration  is  built.  There  is  in  us 
a  faculty  enabling  us  to  become  conscious  of  intuitive  ideas,  a 
faculty,  also,  of  finding  out  the  moral  differences  of  actions.  He 
presents  a  demonstrative  proof  of  the  existence  of  God,  a  truth 
which  he  considers  to  be  necessarily  inferred  from  the  constitution 
of  ourselves  and  of  the  world.  Every  step  in  the  process  is  taken 
with  an  intuitive  certainty.  All  this  stands  in  at  least  a  verbal 
inconsistency  with  the  fundamental  statements  relative  to  the 
origin  of  our  knowledge.  It  was  these  statements  which  furnished 
Condillac  and  other  pure  empiricists  with  the  premises  for  their 
arguments. 

After  Locke  the  two  principal  English  philosophers  in  the  eigh¬ 
teenth  century  were  Berkeley  and  Hume.  Their  systems  stand 
in  a  near  relation  to  theology.  Reid,  the  founder  of  the  Scottish 
metaphysical  school,  sought  to  reestablish  the  foundations  of 
knowledge  which  the  speculations  of  Hume  had  rendered  inse¬ 
cure. 

Locke  had  taught  that  all  our  knowledge  is  of  “  ideas,”  but 
“  ideas  ”  he  had  not  undertaken  fully  or  accurately  to  define. 
They  are  another  term  for  sense-perceptions  or  perceptions  of 
mental  phenomena.  The  primary  qualities  of  matter  are  what 
we  perceive  them  to  be.  There  are  two  essential  principles  in 
Berkeley’s  system.1  In  the  first  place,  in  opposition  to  Locke, 
who  was  a  conceptualist,  he  was  a  nominalist.  Abstractions  are 
not  objects  of  thought.  We  cannot  represent  them.  It  is  only 
things  in  the  concrete  that  we  can  perceive.  Secondly,  the  per¬ 
ception  of  the  primary  qualities  of  matter  is  as  purely  subjective 
as  the  perception  of  the  secondary  qualities,  —  color,  taste,  etc. 
Matter  as  an  object  independent  of  percipient  subjects  does  not 
exist.  Ideas  are  the  only  objects  which  exist.  There  is  no  evi¬ 
dence  of  the  existence  of  any  beings  but  spirits,  finite  minds  and 

1  For  Berkeley’s  teaching,  see  Prof.  A.  C.  Fraser’s  excellent  edition  of  the 
Works  of  Berkeley,  4  vols.  (1871),  and  Professor  Fraser’s  Life  and  Letters  of 
Berkeley. 

2  C 


336 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


the  infinite  mind.  To  God  alone  can  we  refer  the  origin  of  the 
ideas  which  are  evidently  not  the  product  of  our  own  minds.  He 
is  their  author  and  cause.  The  world  is  a  world  of  ideas,  and  the, 
order  of  their  occurrence,  through  the  divine  agency,  is  what  is 
meant  by  the  laws  of  nature.  To  get  rid  of  brute  matter,  and  to 
have  left  only  a  universe  of  spirits,  removed,  in  Berkeley’s  judg¬ 
ment,  a  prime  source  and  support  of  Deism.  He  does  not  exam¬ 
ine  into  the  validity  of  the  ideas  of  cause  and  substance.  This  is 
taken  for  granted.  The  principal  work  of  Berkeley  in  opposition 
to  the  free-thinkers  is  the  Minute  Philosopher ,  which  was  published 
in  1732.  It  is  in  the  form  of  a  dialogue.  In  this  noble  compo¬ 
sition  the  author  combats,  through  his  own  method,  the  different 
types  of  infidelity  current  at  the  time.  Berkeley’s  conception  of 
the  nature  of  religion  was  more  spiritual  than  that  which  was 
prevalent  in  his  day.  Under  his  view  of  nature,  all  nature  is  the 
manifestation  of  God.  There  is  an  inward  light  of  God’s  grace 
which,  not  less  than  reason  and  authority,  is  the  source  of 
Christian  belief. 

Hume  did  not  advocate  nor  dispute  the  reality  of  external 
things.  His  philosophical  skepticism  struck  deeper.  It  under¬ 
mined  the  common  beliefs  respecting  the  reality  of  aught  save 
observed  phenomena  —  the  objects  of  external  and  internal  obser¬ 
vation,  or,  in  the  Lockeian  phrase,  of  “  sensation  and  reflection.” 
Hume'  subtracted  substance  and  cause  from  the  catalogue  of 
things  known.  The  notion  of  cause  is  the  product  of  customary 
association.  When  one  event  is  always  noticed  to  be  accom¬ 
panied  by  another,  —  for  example,  a  sensation  of  burning  when 
there  is  contact  with  fire,  —  we  involuntarily  expect  this  concomi¬ 
tance.  This  necessity  of  expectation  is  carried  over,  without 
warrant,  to  the  external  phenomena.  An  imaginary  tie  of  neces¬ 
sity  is  attributed  to  antecedent  and  consequent.  Pushing  forward 
in  this  scrutiny,  Hume  eliminates  from  things  known  to  be,  the 
soul  as  a  thinking  substance,  an  ego,  and  the  Supreme  Being. 
Hume’s  Natural  History  of  Religion  appeared  in  1757,  and  his 
Dialogues  concerning  Natural  Religion  in  1779,  after  his  death. 
In  the  Dialogues,  the  arguments  for  the  being  of  God,  beginning 
with  the  ontological  proof,  are  the  object  of  a  searching  analysis. 
The  argument  of  design  is  alleged  to  fail,  first,  as  being  anthropo¬ 
morphic  in  its  character,  the  world  being  an  effect  not  to  be  set 
in  analogy  with  the  products  of  human  art ;  and  secondly,  as  only 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


387 


proving,  if  conceded  to  be  valid,  a  Creator  of  limited  power. 
In  an  essay  on  “  Providence  and  a  Future  State,”  Hume  pursues 
this  same  argument,  applying  it,  also,  to  the  doctrine  of  a  moral 
government  of  the  world,  which,  it  is  said,  can  only  be  established 
by  assumptions  as  to  a  future  state,  not  justified  by  the  observed 
facts.  In  the  Natural  History  of  Religion,  it  is  argued,  from  the 
point  of  view  of  the  skeptic,  that  polytheism  was  the  earliest  form 
of  religion,  that  monotheism  is  fhe  product  of  the  elevation  of  a 
favorite  deity  by  his  adoring  worshippers,  and  that  the  constant 
tendency  is  to  revert  to  a  polytheistic  faith  by  imagining  mediators 
in  other  inferior  deities.  Religion  originates  in  the  natural  habit 
to  refer  events  that  affect  our  happiness  to  unknown  causes  which 
the  imagination  personifies.  In  the  Essay  on  Miracles ,  the  design 
is,  not  to  question  the  possibility  of  a  miracle,  but  to  show  that 
it  is  impossible  to  prove  one.  Belief  is  founded  on  experience. 
We  have  had  no  experience  of  the  “  transgression  ”  of  natural 
laws.  We  have  had  experience  of  the  falsehood  of  testimony. 
Weighed  in  the  scales,  therefore,  the  improbability  of  the  alleged 
event  outweighs  the  improbability  that  the  testimony,  however 
accumulated,  is,  for  one  reason  or  another,  false.  Hume  endeav¬ 
ored  to  fortify  his  reasoning  by  reference  to  s  the  testimony  for  the 
alleged  Jansenist  miracles  at  the  tomb  of  the  Abb£  Paris.  The 
replies  to  this  ingenious  essay  were  numerous,  and  did  not  always 
hit  the  mark.  Apart  from  the  assumption  that  belief  is  founded 
wholly  on  experience,  Hume  departs  from  his  own  principles  in 
assuming  that  experience  is  all  adverse  to  the  recurrence  of  a 
miracle.  The  evidence  of  such  an  assertion,  as  J.  S.  Mill  points 
out,  “  is  diminished  in  force  by  whatever  weight  belongs  to  the 
evidence  that  certain  miracles  have  taken  place.”  Moreover,  the 
further  assumption  is  that  there  is  no  God  with  moral  ends  in 
view,  which  a  miracle  in  conceivable  circumstances  might  pro¬ 
mote.  The  argument  deals  with  a  naked  miracle,  cut  off  from 
all  consideration  of  any  special  use  or  design. 

Reid  assumes  the  immediate  knowledge  of  fundamental  axioms. 
Proof  of  them  there  is  none.  They  are  the  basis  of  all  proof. 
Among  them  is  the  principle  that  the  qualities  of  external  things, 
which  are  perceived  immediately,  inhere  in  a  subject  or  substance, 
and  that  the  same  is  true  of  our  thoughts.  The  freedom  of  the 
will  is  another  basal  principle,  under  a  different  class.  Still  an¬ 
other  of  the  same  kind  is  that  what  is  to  occur  in  nature  will 


388 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


probably  be  like  what  has  previously  occurred  in  similar  circum¬ 
stances. 

The  Philosophy  of  Hume  was  a  destructive  assault  upon  the 
main  position  of  the  Deists  respecting  the  origin  of  all  religions 
save  what  they  called  “  the  religion  of  nature.”  On  the  other 
hand,  not  only  by  its  criticism  of  the  basis  of  positive  belief  in 
general,  but  also  by  its  dealing  with  the  proofs  of  the  Christian 
creed  in  particular,  it  presented  to  Christian  Apologists  problems 
of  the  gravest  consequence. 

Joseph  Butler,  Bishop  of  Durham,  had  published  (in  1736)  his 
Analogy  —  the  Analogy  of  Religion ,  Natural  and  Revealed,  to 
the  Constitution  and  Cottrse  of  Nature.  It  is  sometimes  said 
that  Hume,  especially  in  his  Essay  on  Providence,  successfully 
answered  Butler.  In  reality  Hume’s  reasoning  does  not  touch 
the  proposition  of  the  Analogy.  Butler’s  argument  is  directed 
against  Deists,  and  takes  for  granted  that  which  they  concede. 
He  undertakes  to  prove  that  if  there  is  a  likeness  between  the 
known  course  of  nature  and  the  system  of  religion,  natural  and 
revealed,  objections  to  the  latter  cannot  be  drawn  from  anything 
similar  in  the  former,  “  which  is  acknowledged  to  be  from  Him.” 
He  takes  it  “  for  proved  that  there  is  an  intelligent  Author  of 
Nature  and  natural  Governor  of  the  world.”  Butler  establishes 
what  he  sets  out  to  establish.  A  more  sweeping  and  radical 
skepticism,  of  course,  requires  to  be  met  in  another  way.1 

Next  to  Butler,  the  most  famous  of  the  English  Apologists  in 
this  period  was  Paley.  He  was  not,  like  Butler,  an  original 
thinker,  but  he  was  possessed  of  remarkable  tact  and  common 
sense,  and  for  lucidity  of  style  is  almost  unrivalled.  In  the  Horce 
Paulince  he  pointed  out  undesigned  coincidences  between  the 
Acts  and  the  Epistles,  proving  the  authenticity  of  all  these  writ¬ 
ings.  In  his  Evidences  of  Christianity  he  marshals,  in  the  most 
perspicuous  and  orderly  manner,  the  proofs  from  testimony  of  the 
miracles  recorded  in  the  Gospels.  To  the  external  argument  from 
miracles  is  given  the  leading  place  in  the  discussion.  The  Natural 
Theology  is  the  last  in  the  order  of  time  of  this  series  of  works.  It 
is  a  statement  and  illustration  of  the  argument  of  design,  the  illus¬ 
trations  of  it  being  drawn  mainly  from  human  and  comparative 

1  In  his  22d  year  (1713),  Butler  corresponded  with  Clark  respecting  his 
Demonstration  of  the  Being  and  Attributes  of  God,  and  was  convinced  by  his 
arguments. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


389 


anatomy.  It  is  true  that  the  progress  of  natural  science  modifies 
the  form,  although  it  does  not  lessen,  but  rather  increases,  the 
force  of  the  teleological  argument.  Our  attention  is  turned  more 
to  the  general  order  and  progress  of  nature  than  to  particular 
specimens  of  contrivance.  Yet  an  examination  of  Paley  will  show 
that  he  anticipates  the  hypothesis  of  evolution  and  the  theory 
of  indefinite,  fortuitous  variation,  and  shapes  his  argument  accord¬ 
ingly.  In  his  theological  opinions  Paley  may  be  called  a  latitudi- 
narian,  although  in  his  whole  cast  of  thought  he  was  at  a  wide 
remove  from  the  school  bearing  that  name. 

The  most  learned  contribution  to  Christian  evidences  was  made 
by  Nathaniel  Lardner,  a  Unitarian  in  his  creed,  an  indefatigable 
student,  whose  Credibility  of  the  Gospel  History,  a  thesaurus  of 
the  testimonies  of  antiquity,  was  published  in  its  different  parts 
at  intervals  from  1727  to  1755. 

The  three  principal  writers  on  ethics  in  England,  in  the  last 
century,  were  Butler,  Price,  and  Paley.  Butler’s  ethical  doctrines 
are  found  in  his  Dissertation  on  Virtue  and  in  his  Sermons  on 
Human  Nature.  He  teaches  that  self-love  and  benevolence  — 
or  altruism,  to  use  the  phrase  now  in  vogue  —  are  native,  consti¬ 
tutional  principles.  Conscience  is  the  regulative  principle,  defin¬ 
ing  their  due  proportion  to  one  another  and  binding  to  its  ob¬ 
servance.  Equal  love  to  self  and  to  one’s  neighbor  and  supreme 
love  to  God  are  the  sum  of  duty.  Veracity  and  justice  are  some¬ 
times  treated  as  forms  or  branches  of  benevolence.  Elsewhere  it 
is  intimated  that  they  are  virtues  parallel  with  it,  and  independent. 
Price  maintained  that  right  is  a  simple  idea,  not  to  be  resolved 
into  constituents.  Paley  taught  in  his  Moral  Philosophy  the  utili¬ 
tarian  doctrine.  Virtue  is  defined  as  the  “  doing  good  to  man¬ 
kind  in  obedience  to  the  will  of  God,  and  for  the  sake  of 
everlasting  happiness.”  The  sentence  is  stamped  with  Paley’s 
characteristic  way  of  thinking  as  a  theologian.  Paley  makes  the 
springs  of  virtue  to  be  in  self-love.  At  the  opposite  pole  stands 
Hutcheson,  who  identifies  virtue  with  general  benevolence,  which 
must  enter  into  every  action  that  partakes  of  virtue. 

The  interval  between  the  accession  of  Anne,  in  1714,  and  the 
death  of  George  II.,  in  1760,  is  a  period  in  the  religious  history 
of  England  to  which  neither  Churchmen  nor  Dissenters  can  look 
back  without  shame  and  regret.  The  efforts  at  comprehension 
made  by  Tillotson  and  his  school  after  the  Revolution  were  baffled 


390 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


by  the  resolute  intolerance  of  the  High  Churchmen  and  by  the 
fear  of  a  division  in  the  Church  itself.  Puritanism  had  lost  not 
only  a  great  part  of  its  influence,  but  also  a  great  part  of  its  vigor. 
A  prevalent  indifference  and  skepticism,  the  spread  of  vice,  partly 
a  heritage  from  the  last  Stuart  kings,  and  the  ignorance  of  the 
clergy,  did  not  lessen  a  whit  the  acrimony  of  ecclesiastical  dis¬ 
putes.  Convocation  was  reduced  to  silence  in  1717,  and  until 
1854  was  not  again  allowed  to  transact  business.  After  the  middle 
of  the  century  the  state  of  things,  as  regards  education  and  prac¬ 
tical  religion,  only  gradually  improved.  What  was  the  condition 
of  the  universities  in  the  period  may  be  learned  from  such  books 
as  the  autobiography  of  Gibbon,  who  was  matriculated  at  Magda¬ 
len  College  in  1752.  Bishop  Burnet,  in  1713,  wrote  of  those  who 
came  to  be  ordained  as  follows  :  “  They  can  give  no  account,  or 
at  least  a  very  imperfect  one,  of  the  contents  even  of  the  Gospels, 
or  of  the  Catechism  itself.”  Bishop  Butler,  in  the  Preface  to  the 
Analogy ,  remarks  that  it  had  come  to  be  taken  for  granted  “  that 
Christianity  is  not  so  much  as  a  subject  of  inquiry ;  but  that  it  is 
now  at  length  discovered  to  be  fictitious.”  In  1751,  in  a  charge, 
he  affirms  the  deplorable  distinction  of  the  age  to  be  “  an 
avowed  scorn  of  religion  in  some  and  a  growing  disregard  of  it 
in  the  generality.”  The  dark  picture  is  somewhat  relieved  when 
we  see  on  the  canvas  such  figures  as  Doddridge  and  Watts  among 
the  Nonconformists,  and  Bishop  Wilson,  the  author  of  Sacra 
Privata ,  among  the  Churchmen.  William  Law  was  the  writer 
who,  more  than  any  other,  promoted  a  spiritual  awakening.  By 
his  Serious  Call ,  Dr.  Johnson  was  first  aroused  “  to  thinking  in 
earnest  on  religion.”  Besides  his  influence  in  promoting  piety, 
he  was  an  acute  defender  of  theism  and  of  the  truth  of  Christian 
miracles.  His  mystical  tendencies,  fostered  by  the  influence  of 
Bohme,  induced  a  change  which  led  him  to  look  on  the  inward 
life  and  the  inward  light  as  the  real  verification  of  Christianity, 
and  to  make  the  office  of  Christ  to  be  principally  the  conquest  of 
evil  of  every  sort,  and  the  impartation  of  a  new  life  to  his  fol¬ 
lowers.  He  did  not  come,  says  Law,  “  to  quiet  an  angry  Deity.” 

Into  the  details  of  the  history  of  the  great  Methodist  Revival 
we  cannot  here  enter.  It  is  only  of  its  relation  to  the  history  of 
doctrine  that  we  have  here  to  speak.  If  Whitefield  was  the  most 
persuasive  and  eloquent  preacher  of  the  early  Methodists,  John 
Wesley  was  incomparably  the  greatest  man.  He  was  a  trained 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 

scholar,  as  well  as  an  effective  preacher,  and  he  was  an  organizer, 
in  this  respect  on  a  level  with  the  most  renowned  leaders  of  the 
mediaeval  monastic  orders.  He  was  born  in  1703  and  died  in 
1791.  Wesley,  with  his  brother  Charles,  and  the  others  of  the 
group  of  young  men  at  Oxford  who  originated  the  Methodist 
movement,  was  at  the  outset  a  High  Churchman  and  a  ritualist. 
There  is  a  striking  resemblance  between  these  young  Oxford 
Methodists  and  the  leaders  of  the  modern  Oxford  movement. 
But  there  entered  into  Wesley’s  mind  and  experience  two  potent 
differentiating  elements.  There  was  in  him,  as  in  his  associates,  a 
burning  evangelistic  zeal ;  and  in  his  religious  experience  he  was 
pretty  early  brought  to  a  living  apprehension  of  the  Pauline  doctrine 
of  justification  by  faith  alone.  At  first  he  fed  on  mystical  and  devo¬ 
tional  writings.  He  was  devoted  to  Law  and  his  books ;  he  read 
with  deep  sympathy  Jeremy  Taylor’s  Holy  Living  and  Dying ;  he 
was  a  disciple  of  Thomas  a  Kempis,  whose  Imitation  of  Christ  was 
one  of  the  first  books  which  he  caused  to  be  published.  He  was 
long  a  seeker  for  inward  religious  peace.  He  came  into  intimate 
relations  with  the  Moravians,  and  his  relation  to  Spangenberg  and 
others  may  remind  one  of  Luther’s  relation  to  mystical  teachers. 
There  was  a  great  change  in  Wesley’s  inward  life,  a  change  that 
gave  character  to  his  subsequent  career,  when,  on  the  28th  of 
May,  1738,  at  a  meeting  of  a  Moravian  society  in  London,  he 
listened  to  a  reading  of  Luther’s  Preface  to  his  Commentary  on 
the  Romans.  There  entered  into  his  soul,  as  by  a  flash  of  light, 
a  joyful  assurance  that  his  sins  were  freely  forgiven.  After  this 
time  William  Law’s  teaching  seemed  to  him  quite  inadequate. 
He  pronounced  upon  it  a  too  harsh  judgment.  He  parted  by 
degrees  from  the  Moravians,  partly  because  their  teachers  in  Lon¬ 
don  at  that  time  inculcated  ideas  concerning  justification  —  such 
as  that  “  weak  faith  is  no  faith  ”  —  which  he  denied.  In  truth, 
the  leaven  of  quietism  in  the  Moravian  Christians  with  whom  he 
had  consorted  in  London,  was  now  foreign  to  his  convictions. 

Wesley  was  not  only  conversant  with  devout  writers  and  cer¬ 
tain  mystical  teachers;  he  had  acquainted  himself  with  the 
ancient  Greek  theology.  He  had  studied  Chrysostom.  He  was 
an  Arminian  in  his  creed.  On  this  point  Whitefield,  who  was  a 
devoted  Calvinist,  parted  company  with  him,  and  was  the  leader 
of  the  Calvinistic  Methodists  in  England.  Wesley’s  antagonism 
to  the  Calvinistic  doctrine  of  election  and  its  correlate  of  exclusive 


392 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


divine  agency  in  conversion  was  intense,  and  remained  so  through 
his  life.1  It  is  natural  to  ask  how  it  was  that  the  evangelical 
Arminianism  of  Wesley  was  so  different  in  its  tone  and  its  practi¬ 
cal  effect  from  the  Arminianism  of  Holland  and  the  same  system 
as  held  by  its  English  advocates  contemporary  with  him.  In 
the  first  place,  the  Dutch  Arminianism  was  early  modified  by 
Socinian  and  other  Pelagian  elements.  The  central  point  in 
Wesley’s  creed  was  always  justification  by  faith  alone.  Secondly, 
in  Wesley  it  was  not  valued  predominantly  as  an  ethical  theory, 
but  as  being  identified,  according  to  his  view,  with  the  interests  of 
practical  religion.  The  doctrine  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  of  His  indis¬ 
pensable  agency  in  conversion  and  sanctification,  was  never  dis¬ 
placed  or  lowered  in  the  Wesleyan  creed.  This  faith  in  the  living 
power  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  not  anything  ascribed  to  unaided  human 
agency,  was  the  secret  of  the  emphasis  which  was  laid  on  Assur-  , 
ance  as  a  privilege  attainable  by  all  believers.  From  the  same 
source  sprang  the  Wesleyan  doctrine  of  Perfection.  All  believers 
may  attain  to  a  perfection,  which,  however,  is  not  a  legal ,  but 
a  Christian ,  perfection.  It  is  a  state  where  love  to  God  and 
man  reigns  continuously,  where  there  are  no  presumptuous  sins, 
yet  where  there  are  still  involuntary  negligences  and  ignorances, 
transgressions  of  the  perfect  law,  for  which,  therefore,  forgive¬ 
ness,  through  the  Atonement,  is  requisite. 

Wesley  holds  to  an  inherited  corruption,  which,  however,  of 
itself  does  not  involve  the  desert  of  eternal  condemnation.  We 
are  implicated  in  the  guilt  of  Adam’s  sin  —  how,  Wesley  does  not 
distinctly  explain.2  Fletcher  favors  the  realistic  hypothesis.  Wat¬ 
son  seems  to  adopt  the  federal  theory.3  But  the  Wesleyan  doc¬ 
trine  is  that  the  remedial  system,  dating  from  the  fall  of  man,  is 
provided  not  only  as  a  dictate  of  divine  goodness,  but  also  as 
required  by  divine  justice  in  case  the  race  is  to  be  continued  in 
being.  The  Atonement  is  a  provision  under  the  moral  govern¬ 
ment  of  God.  It  is  a  governmental  provision,  not  a  literal 
satisfaction  of  the  claims  of  law.  It  is  universal  in  its  design. 
Regenerating  grace  is  the  primary  and  principal  agent  in  conver¬ 
sion,  but  grace  is  not  irresistible.  The  unregenerate  who  will  pray 

1  See,  for  example,  his  “  Sermon  on  Free  Grace,”  Works,  Vol.  I.,  Sermon 
LIV.,  and  his  Controversy  with  Toplady. 

2  Works,  Vol.  V.  pp.  526,  535,  577.  Cf.  Miley,  SysL  Theol.  II.  506. 

3  Ibid.  Vol.  I.  p.  284;  Vol.  III.  pp.  255-257.  Cf.  Miley,  II.  507. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


393 


for  the  Spirit,  under  a  sense  of  their  own  inability  and  looking 
upward  for  help,  will  be  blessed  with  the  needed  aid  from  above. 
The  Wesleyan  theology  insists  on  the  Gospel  being  a  free  gift 
which  is  intended  equally  for  all,  and  on  a  freedom  of  decision  as 
to  the  acceptance  of  it,  along  with  the  absolute  necessity  of  regen¬ 
erating  grace.  Whatever  may  be  thought  of  this  combination, 
logically  considered,  it  constituted  in  the  hands  of  the  Wesleyan 
ministry  a  most  effective  instrument  in  the  propagation  of  Chris¬ 
tianity. 

There  were  defenders  of  Calvinism,  in  the  Church  of  England, 
in  the  eighteenth  century.  Of  their  number  were  Toplady,  and 
Thomas  Scott  (1747-1821),  whose  chief  distinction  was  that  of  a 
commentator.  Ridgley,  Watts,  and  Doddridge,  advocates  of  Cal¬ 
vinism,  were  dissenters.  Nominalistic  philosophy  and  a  theory  of 
individualism  had  now  fully  superseded  the  Augustinian  concep¬ 
tion  of  race-unity.  It  is  evident  that  the  writers  named  above  are 
struggling  with  difficulties  on  the  subject  of  Original  Sin  and  of 
Election,  which  they  are  conscious  of  an  inability  to  overcome. 
They  retreat  upon  the  idea  of  a  lessened  and  qualified  responsi¬ 
bility  for  the  sin  of  Adam.  Solutions  are  suggested  only  to  be 
given  up,  or  confessed  to  be  inadequate.  Election,  according  to 
Doddridge,  secures  such  an  influence  of  God  on  the  hearts  of  the 
elect  that  their  salvation  “  should  on  the  whole  be  ascribed  to  him 
and  not  to  themselves.”  Watts,  it  may  be  observed,  in  addition  to 
a  like  half-hearted,  apologetic  tone  in  reference  to  sin  and  election, 
propounds  a  peculiar  opinion  on  the  person  of  Christ.  He  holds 
to  the  preexistence  of  His  human  nature,  which  was  the  first  of 
created  beings,  and  had  existed  in  a  mysterious,  ineffable  union 
with  God  the  Father.  Under  the  assaults  of  the  champions  of 
Arminian  theology,  prominent  among  whom  were  Whitby  and  Dr. 
John  Taylor  of  Norwich,  the  Calvinistic  line  —  if  so  it  can  be 
called  even  metaphorically  —  reeled  and  seemed  anxious  chiefly 
to  avoid  a  complete  rout. 


CHAPTER  II 


THEOLOGY  IN  AMERICA  IN  THE  EIGHTEENTH  AND  NINETEENTH  CEN¬ 
TURIES - THEOLOGY  OF  THE  FIRST  SETTLERS - JONATHAN  EDWARDS 

AND  HIS  SCHOOL  (“  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  THEOLOGY  ”)  - THE  RISE 

OF  UNITARIANISM  :  CHANNING,  EMERSON,  PARKER  —  THE  RISE  OF 

UNIVERSALISM - NEW  DEVELOPMENTS  IN  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  SCHOOL 

- THE  THEOLOGY  OF  HORACE  BUSHNELL - THE  THEOLOGY  OF 

HENRY  B.  SMITH - CALVINISM  IN  THE  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH  : 

CHARLES  HODGE 

The  settlers  of  New  England  were  strict  Calvinists.  Calvinism 
was  the  creed  of  John  Robinson,  the  pastor  of  the  Leyden  Church, 
from  which  the  Pilgrims  came  over  to  Plymouth.  It  was  the  com¬ 
mon  faith  of  the  colonists  who  planted  the  other  New  England 
communities,  and  adopted  the  Congregational  polity.  So  it  con¬ 
tinued  to  be  through  the  seventeenth  century.  A  writing  of 
William  Pynchon,  of  Springfield,  —  The  Meritorious  Price  of 
Christ's  Redemption ,  etc.,  —  presenting  a  view  of  the  Atonement, 
which  is  not  essentially  diverse  from  the  governmental  theory,  was 
condemned  in  1650  by  the  General  Court,  the  Colonial  Legisla¬ 
ture  of  Massachusetts,  and  burned  in  the  market-place  in  Boston. 
By  direction  of  the  Court,  it  was  answered  by  John  Norton,  a 
minister  of  Boston.  In  1648,  the  “  Cambridge  Platform’’  was 
adopted  by  a  Massachusetts  synod.  It  sanctioned  the  West¬ 
minster  Confession  “  for  the  substance  thereof.”  The  Savoy 
Confession,  which  the  English  Congregationalists  had  adopted  in 
1658,  was  essentially  the  same  as  to  doctrine  as  the  Westminster 
creed.  It  was  adopted,  with  slight  changes,  by  the  Boston  Synod  of 
1680.  This  creed  of  1680  was  approved  by  the  Saybrook  Synod 
in  Connecticut  in  1 708.  But  there  was  an  increasing  intercourse 
and  interchange  of  thought  with  the  “  mother  country.”  The 
eighteenth  century  brought  in  the  Arminian  theology,  which  had 

394 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


395 


spread  among  Dissenters  as  well  as  Churchmen  in  England.  The 
Arminian  writers,  Whitby,  John  Taylor,  Dr.  Samuel  Clark,  were 
imported  and  read.  What  was  called  Arminianism,  coupled  with 
tendencies  toward  Arian  and  Socinian  opinions,  gradually  super¬ 
seded  the  old  creed  in  the  minds  and  in  the  teachings  of  many, 
especially  in  eastern  New  England.  The  same  decline  of  earnest¬ 
ness  in  practical  religion,  which  prevailed  in  England,  was  expe¬ 
rienced  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic.  The  “  Great  Awakening,” 
which  began  about  1740,  was  accompanied  by  the  advocacy  of 
Calvinistic  doctrines  and  attacks  upon  Arminianism.  The  leaders 
in  the  Revival  were  aided  in  preaching  by  the  eloquence  of  White- 
field.  Jonathan  Edwards,  to  whom  he  looked  up  with  admiring 
reverence,  was  not  only  an  eminent  preacher ;  he  was  the  theo¬ 
logian  of  the  movement.  He  was  the  originator  of  that  modified 
Calvinism  which  is  termed  “  New  England  Theology.” 

It  is  pretty  clearly  implied  in  a  remark  of  Dugald  Stewart  that 
up  to  his  time  Jonathan  Edwards  was  the  only  philosopher  of  note 
that  America  had  produced.  “  He,”  it  is  added,  “in  logical 
acuteness  and  subtilty,  does  not  yield  to  any  disputant  bred  in 
the  universities  of  Europe.”1  “The  foundation  of  the  literature 
of  independent  America,”  writes  F.  D.  Maurice,  speaking  of 
Edwards’s  treatise  on  the  Will,  “  was  laid  in  a  book  which  was 
published  while  it  was  a  subject  of  the  British  crown.”  2  Edwards 
is  an  example  of  that  rare  mingling  of  intellectual  subtilty  and 
spiritual  insight,  of  logical  acumen  with  mystical  fervor,  which 
qualify  their  possessor  for  the  highest  achievements  in  the  field  of 
religious  thought.  In  this  respect,  he  resembles  Augustine,  and 
the  typical  leaders  of  Scholasticism,  Anselm  and  Aquinas.  Let 
any  competent  student  take  up  Edwards’s  work  on  the  Will,  and 
mark  the  keen,  unrelenting  logic  with  which  he  pursues  his  oppo¬ 
nents  through  all  the  intricate  windings  of  that  perplexed  contro¬ 
versy,  and  then  turn  to  the  same  author’s  sermon  on  the  Nature 
and  Reality  of  Spiritual  Light ,  or  to  his  book  on  the  Affections. 
It  is  like  passing  from  the  pages  of  Aristotle  to  a  sermon  of 
Tauler ;  only  that  Edwards  knows  how  to  analyze  the  experiences 
of  the  heart,  and  to  use  them  as  data  for  scientific  conclusions. 
He  has  left  a  record  of  meditations  on  “  the  beauty  and  sweet¬ 
ness  ”  of  divine  things,  when  even  the  whole  face  of  nature  was 

1  Stewart’s  Works  (Hamilton’s  ed.),  Vol.  I.  p.  424. 

2  Modern  Philosophy ,  p.  469. 


396 


HISTORY  OK  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


transfigured  to  his  vision.  We  see  this  cool  dialectician,  whose 
power  of  subtile  argument  Sir  James  Mackintosh  pronounces  to 
have  been  “  perhaps  unmatched,  certainly  unsurpassed,  among 
men,”  1  overcome  by  the  emotions  excited  by  the  contemplation 
of  the  spiritual  excellence  of  Christ.  Edwards  may  be  ranked 
with  Pascal  as  an  example  of  precocious  mental  development. 
He  entered  Yale  College  when  he  was  not  yet  thirteen.  It  was 
while  he  was  a  member  of  college  that  he  committed  to  writing 
philosophical  remarks  that  would  do  credit  to  the  ablest  and 
maturest  mind.  At  the  age  of  twelve,  he  wrote  a  letter,  which 
is  really  a  well-reasoned  scientific  paper,  on  the  habits  of  the 
spider,  as  ascertained  from  his  own  singularly  accurate  observa¬ 
tions.2  His  copious  Notes  on  physics  and  natural  science,  which 
afford  a  striking  proof  of  his  intellectual  grasp  and  versatility,  were 
written,  at  least  in  great  part,  before  he  left  college.  But  besides 
the  composition  of  these,  he  began,  under  the  head  of  Mind , 
a  series  of  metaphysical  definitions  and  discussions,  which,  as 
emanating  from  a  boy  of  sixteen  or  seventeen,  are  surprising.  In 
them  may  be  found  the  germs  of  much  that  is  developed  after¬ 
wards  in  his  theological  writings.  A  large  part  of  these  juvenile 
papers  are  devoted  to  the  elucidation  and  defence  of  what  is  known 
as  the  Berkeleian  doctrine  that  the  percepts  of  sense  have  no  exist¬ 
ence  independently  of  mind ;  that,  although  they  are  not  origi¬ 
nated  by  us,  but  by  a  power  without,  that  power  is  not  a  material 
substance  or  substratum,  but  the  will  of  God  acting  in  a  uniform 
method.3  The  popular  objections  to  the  Berkeleian  theory  are 
stated  accurately,  and  are  answered.  Thus  the  way  is  open  for  the 
conclusion,  which  Edwards  considers  to  be  the  truth,  that  there 
are  only  spiritual  beings  or  substances  in  the  universe.  There  is 
not  wanting  evidence  of  a  continued  adherence  of  Edwards  to  this 
opinion.  In  the  treatise  on  “  Original  Sin,”  one  of  his  latest  compo¬ 
sitions  and  a  posthumous  publication,  this  remark  occurs  :  “  The 
course  of  nature  is  demonstrated  by  late  improvements  in  phi¬ 
losophy  to  be  indeed  what  our  author  himself  says  it  is,  viz., 
nothing  but  the  established  order  of  the  agency  and  operation 
of  the  Author  of  nature.” 4  Here  it  is  altogether  probable  that 

1  Progress  of  Ethical  Philosophy,  p.  108  (Philadelphia  ed.  1832). 

2  In  Dwight’s  Life  of  Edwards ,  c.  ii. 

3  Ibid.  pp.  669,  674. 

4  Dwight’s  ed.  Vol.  II.  p.  540. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


397 


the  reference  is  to  the  philosophy  of  Berkeley.  With  this  passage 
may  be  compared  incidental  statements  on  perception,  in  the 
treatise  on  the  Will,  which,  however,  do  not  go  so  far  as  neces¬ 
sarily  to  imply  the  Berkeleian  theory.1 

Locke  is  the  author  whose  stimulating  influence  on  Edwards  is 
most  obvious.  He  read  Locke  when  he  was  fourteen  years  old, 
with  a  delight  greater,  to  use  his  own  words,  “  than  the  most 
greedy  miser  finds  when  gathering  up  handfuls  of  silver  and  gold 
from  some  newly  discovered  treasure.”  2  Yet  he  read  Locke  with 
independence,  and  not  only  pursued  a  theological  direction  quite 
opposite  to  that  of  his  master,  but  not  unfrequently  dissents  from 
his  opinions  and  replies  to  his  arguments.  Of  his  relation  to 
Locke  we  shall  soon  have  occasion  to  revert. 

Edwards  felt  assured  that  the  reasoning  of  the  current  Arminian 
writers  was  erroneous  and  weak.  He  was  quite  confident  that  it 
could  be  overthrown  with  ease.  He  was  offended  by  the  air  of 
invincibility  which  they  seemed  to  him  to  assume.  He  went  to 
the  heart  of  the  controversy  when,  in  1754,  he  published  his 
Careful  and  Strict  Inquiry  into  the  Modern  Prevailing  Notions 
of  Freedom  of  Will. 

An  examination  of  the  work  shows  that  it  is  to  Locke’s  chapter 
on  Power  that  the  author  was  most  indebted  for  quickening  sug¬ 
gestions.  This  discussion,  as  we  are  explicitly  informed,  caused 
him  to  perceive  that  an  evil  man  may  properly  be  said  to  have  a 
natural  or  physical  ability  to  be  good.  Locke  anticipates  Edwards 
in  combating  the  proposition  that  choice  springs  from  a  previous 
state  of  indifference,  an  absolute  neutrality  of  feeling,  either  pre¬ 
ceding  the  act  of  judgment  or  interposed  between  that  act  and 
the  act  of  will.  Locke’s  conception  of  liberty  as  relating  exclu¬ 
sively  to  the  effects  of  choice,  or  events  consecutive  to  volition, 
and  not  to  the  origination  of  choice  itself,  is  precisely  coincident 
with  that  of  Edwards.  “  Freedom,”  says  Locke,  “  consists  in  the 
dependence  of  the  existence,  or  non-existence,  of  any  action  upon 
our  volition  of  it.”  Locke  asserts  that  the  question  whether  the 
will  itself  be  free  or  not  is  unreasonable  and  unintelligible ;  and 
he  precedes  Edwards  in  seeking  to  fasten  upon  one  who  asks 
whether  a  man  is  free  to  choose  in  a  particular  way  rather  than 
in  the  opposite,  the  absurdity  of  assuming  the  possibility  of  an 
infinite  series  of  choices,  or  of  inquiring  whether  an  identical 

1  Dwight’s  ed.  Vol.  II.  pp.  206,  207.  2  Dwight’s  Life ,  p.  30. 


398 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


proposition  is  true.  “To  choose  as  one  pleases,”  if  one  does  not 
mean  “to  choose  as  one  chooses  to  choose”  —  which  involves 
the  absurdity  of  a  series  of  choices  ad  infinitum  —  can  only  mean 
“to  choose  as  one  actually  chooses,”  a  futile  identical  proposition. 
In  the  psychology  of  the  act  of  choice  there  is  no  essential  differ¬ 
ence  between  Locke  and  Edwards.  Both  represent  the  mind  as 
perpetually  moved  by  the  desire  of  good.  Locke’s  invariable 
antecedent  of  choice,  “uneasiness  of  desire,”  or  last  dictate  of 
the  understanding  as  to  good  or  happiness,  does  not  differ  from 
Edwards’s  “view  of  the  mind  as  to  the  greatest  apparent  good.” 
In  one  grand  peculiarity  they  coincide  :  will  and  sensibility  are 
confounded.  The  twofold  division  of  the  powers  of  the  mind 
still  prevailed  in  philosophy.  We  are  endued  with  understanding 
and  will ;  and  mental  phenomena  which  do  not  belong  to  the 
understanding  are  relegated  to  the  will.  The  principal  inconsist¬ 
ency  of  Edwards  in  his  discussions  of  this  subject,  in  his  various 
writings,  is  the  failure  persistently  to  identify  or  persistently  to 
distinguish  voluntary  and  involuntary  inclinations.  Inclination 
and  choice  are  treated  as  indistinguishable,1  and  yet  the  one  is 
spoken  of  as  the  antecedent  and  cause  of  the  other.  The  ambi¬ 
guity  of  “  inclination  ”  and  of  its  synonyms  has  been  a  fruitful 
source  of  confusion.  It  was  reserved  for  the  metaphysicians  of 
the  present  century  to  establish  the  bounds  between  sensibility, 
an  involuntary  function,  and  will.  It  is  important,  however,  not 
to  overlook  the  distinction  between  those  choices  which  are  perma¬ 
nent  states  of  the  will,  and  constitute  the  abiding  principles  of 
character  and  motives  of  action,  and  the  subsidiary  purposes  and 
volitions  which  they  dictate.  It  is  right  to  add  that,  however 
Edwards  may  have  owed  to  Locke  pregnant  hints  on  the  subject 
of  the  will,  these  fell  into  the  richest  soil ;  and  the  doctrine  of 
philosophical  necessity  was  elaborated  and  fortified  by  the  younger 
writer  with  a  much  more  rigid  logic  and  a  far  wider  sweep  of 
argument  than  can  be  claimed  for  Locke’s  discussion.  Locke 
modified  his  opinions  from  one  edition  to  another ;  and  his  cor¬ 
respondence  with  Limborch  discloses  the  fact  that  he  was  him¬ 
self  not  satisfied  with  the  views  of  the  subject  which  he  had 
presented  in  his  work.  The  conviction  of  Edwards,  on  the  other 
hand,  was  attended  by  no  misgivings,  and  stayed  with  him  to  the 
end  of  life. 


1  See,  e.g.,  Vol.  V.  pp.  io,  ix. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


399 


There  are  striking  resemblances  between  statements  and  argu¬ 
ments  in  Edwards’s  book  on  the  Will  and  passages  in  Hobbes  and 
Collins.  Edwards  incidentally  remarks  that  he  had  never  read 
Hobbes,  and  the  same  is  probably  true  respecting  Collins.1 

These  coincidences  between  Edwards  and  the  authors  above 
named  are  really  not  remarkable.  The  defenders  of  the  doctrine 
of  necessity  naturally  take  one  path.  They  demand  an  explana¬ 
tion  of  the  determination  of  the  will,  so  far  as  it  involves  the 
election  of  one  thing  in  preference  to  another.  They  deny  that 
the  mere  power  of  willing  accounts  for  the  specification  of  the 
choice,  by  which  one  thing  is  taken  and  another  rejected.  Tak¬ 
ing  this  weapon,  the  axiom  of  cause  and  effect,  they  chase  their 
opponents  out  of  every  place  of  refuge.  Edwards  is  peculiar  only 
in  the  surpassing  keenness  and  unsparing  persistency  with  which 
he  carries  on  the  combat,  even  anticipating  defences  against  his 
logic  which  had  not  been  as  yet  set  up.  He  was  anxious  to  de¬ 
molish  forts  even  before  they  were  erected.  His  habit  of  taking 
up  all  conceivable  objections  to  the  proposition  which  he  advo¬ 
cates,  in  advance  of  the  opponent,  is  one  main  source  of  his 
strength  as  a  disputant.  He  not  only  fires  his  own  gun,  but 
spikes  that  of  the  enemy. 

Of  course  it  is  far  from  being  true  that  Edwards  was  the  first  to 
assert  the  impropriety  of  the  term  ‘  necessary  ’  as  a  predicate  of 
acts  of  will,  on  the  ground  that  ‘  necessity  ’  presupposes  an  opposi¬ 
tion  of  the  will  which,  of  course,  is  precluded  when  the  occurrence 
in  question  is  itself  a  choice.  I  am  constrained  to  that  to  which 
my  will  is  opposed,  but  which  nevertheless  occurs.  That  is  nec¬ 
essary  “which  choice  cannot  prevent.” 2  The  same  objection 
is  made  to  the  terms  ‘  irresistible,’  ‘  unavoidable,’  ‘  inevitable,’ 
‘unable,’  and  their  synonyms,  as  descriptive  of  the  determina¬ 
tions  of  the  will.  If  Augustine  does  not  use  the  above-mentioned 
terms  in  an  explicit  form,  yet  there  lurks  continually  under  his 
statements  the  feeling  that  underlies  this  criticism ;  as,  for  in¬ 
stance,  when  he  speaks  of  “  the  most  blessed  necessity  ”  of  not 
sinning,  under  which  the  Deity  is  placed,  “  if  necessity  it  is  to  be 
called,”  —  “si  necessitas  dicenda  est.”3  But  the  objection  to  all 

1  See  Hobbes’s  Works  (Molesworth’s  ed.),  Vol.  II.  pp.  247,  410,  and 
Collins’s  Inquiry ,  pp.  2,  41,  58,  59,  83  sq. 

2  Edwards’s  Works ,  Vol.  II.  p.  84. 

3  Op.  imp.  I.  103. 


400 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


terms  implying  coercion,  especially  to  the  word  ‘  necessity,’  is  set 
forth  by  Thomas  Aquinas  as  clearly  as  by  Edwards.1 

It  is  the  doctrine  of  Edwards,  then,  that  the  will  is  determined 
by  “  that  view  of  the  mind  which  has  the  greatest  degree  of  pre¬ 
vious  tendency  to  excite  volition.” 2 3  This  antecedent  mental 
state  secures  the  result  by  a  strictly  causal  efficiency.  Moral 
necessity  is  distinguished  from  the  natural  necessity  that  prevails 
in  material  nature,  in  that  the  former  is  concerned  with  mental 
phenomena,  with  motives  and  the  volitions  which  they  produce  ; 
but  the  difference  “  does  not  lie  so  much  in  the  nature  of  the 
connection ,  as  in  the  two  terms  connected .” 3  It  is  cause  and  effect 
in  both  cases.  To  the  objection  that  morality  and  responsibility 
are  subverted  by  this  doctrine,  Edwards  replies  that  men  are  re¬ 
sponsible  for  their  choices,  no  matter  what  the  causes  of  them 
may  be  ;  that  moral  quality  inheres  in  the  choices  themselves,  and 
not  in  their  causes.  As  liberty  “  does  not  consider  anything  of  the 
cause  of  the  choice,”  4  so  it  is  with  moral  accountableness,  with 
merit  and  ill-desert.  Sufficient  that  the  choice  exists  in  the  man  as 
an  operation  of  will.5  On  no  other  hypothesis  than  the  necessita¬ 
rian  did  Edwards  think  it  possible  to  hold  to  the  omniscience  of 
God  and  His  universal  providence  and  government.  Principles 
which  freethinkers  maintained  for  other  ends,  he  defended  as  the 
indispensable  foundations  of  religion. 

Edwards,  as  we  have  intimated,  came  forward  as  the  champion 
of  Calvinism  against  Whitby  and  its  other  English  assailants.  He 
intended  “  to  bring  the  late  objections  and  outcries  against  Cal- 
vinistic  divinity  to  the  test  of  the  strictest  reasoning.”6  He  scat¬ 
tered  to  the  winds  the  loosely  defined  notions  of  free-will  which 
made  it  include  the  choosing  of  choices,  and  choice  from  a  pre¬ 
vious  indifference,  or  apart  from  all  influence  of  motives.  It  is  not 
true  that,  out  of  various  possible  choices,  the  mind  decides  upon, 
i.e.,  chooses  one.  Nor  is  it  true  that  the  act  of  choice  starts  into 
being  independently  of  inducements.  Although  his  adversaries 
must  have  felt  that  he  took  advantage  of  the  infirmities  of  lan¬ 
guage,  and  confuted  what  they  said  rather  than  what  they  meant, 
yet  it  is  quite  untrue  that  he  was  guilty  of  any  conscious  un¬ 
fairness. 

1  Summa ,  Part  I.  Qu.  5,  Art.  4.  4  Ibid.  p.  39;  cf.  p.  191. 

2  Works,  Vol.  II.  p.  25.  5  Ibid.  p.  185  sq.  (Part  IV.  §  1). 

3  Ibid.  Vol.  II.  p.  34.  6  Letter  to  Erskine ,  Dwight’s  Life,  p.  497. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


401 


He  had  no  faith  in  their  conception  of  freedom,  however  it 
might  be  formulated.  But,  in  prosecuting  his  purpose,  Edwards 
set  up  a  philosophy  of  the  will  which  is  not  consonant  with  the 
doctrine  that  had  been  held  by  the  main  body  of  Augustinian 
theologians.  It  is  true  that  the  Wittenberg  Reformers,  at  the 
outset,  and  Calvin,  in  his  earlier  writings,  especially  the  Institutes , 
pushed  predestination  to  the  supralapsarian  extreme.  The  doc¬ 
trine  of  Augustine,  however,  and  the  more  general  doctrine  even 
of  Calvinistic  theologians,  the  doctrine  of  the  Westminster  As¬ 
sembly’s  creeds,  is  that  a  certain  liberty  of  will  ad  utrumvis ,  or 
the  power  of  contrary  choice,  had  belonged  to  the  first  man,  but 
had  disappeared  in  the  act  of  transgression,  which  brought  his 
will  into  bondage  to  evil.  It  was  the  common  doctrine,  too,  that 
in  mankind  now,  while  the  will  is  enslaved  as  regards  religious 
obedience,  it  remains  free  outside  of  this  province,  in  all  civil  and 
secular  concerns.  In  this  wide  domain  the  power  of  contrary 
choice  still  subsists.  But  Edwards’s  conception  of  the  will  admits 
of  no  such  distinction.  In  the  room  of  an  acquired  slavery  of 
the  will,  he  teaches  a  determinism  belonging  to  its  very  nature. 
Freedom  is  as  predicable  of  men  now  as  of  Adam  before  he 
sinned  ;  of  religious  morality  as  of  the  affairs  of  worldly  business ; 
of  man  as  of  God.  He  asserts  most  emphatically  that  he  holds 
men  to  be  possessed  now  of  all  the  liberty  which  it  is  possible  to 
imagine,  or  which  it  ever  entered  into  the  heart  of  any  man  to 
conceive.1  Of  course,  there  can  have  been  no  loss  of  liberty,  no 
forfeiture  of  a  prerogative  once  possessed.  Philosophical  neces¬ 
sity  belongs  to  the  very  nature  of  the  will.  Therefore  it  binds 
all  spiritual  beings  alike.  This  is  not  the  philosophy  of  Augus¬ 
tine  or  of  the  Westminster  divines.  They  held  to  a  mutability 
of  will  once  belonging  to  man,  but  now  lost ;  to  a  freedom 
pertaining  at  present  to  men  in  one  sphere  of  action,  but  not 
in  another. 

It  is  plain  that  Edwards  believed  in  predestination  in  the 
extreme  supralapsarian  form.  He  encloses  in  the  network  of 
philosophical  necessity  all  intelligent  beings.  The  sovereignty  of 
God  in  the  realm  of  choices,  as  in  the  realm  of  matter,  and  His 
omnipresent  agency,  are  fundamental  in  his  creed.  Sometimes 
he  seems  to  contend  for  a  naked  sovereignty,  for  the  exercise  and 
manifestation,  in  a  certain  sphere  of  pure  will.  But  the  impression 
1  Letter  to  Erskine,  Dwight’s  Life ,  Vol.  II.  p.  293. 


2  D 


402 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


is  elsewhere  corrected.1  The  Arminian  objection  that,  according 
to  Calvinism,  a  sinful  man  cannot  love  God,  cannot  repent,  is  met 
by  a  denial.  He  can  if  he  will.  If  it  be  asked,  can  he  will,  the 
question  is  pronounced  to  be  nonsensical.  He  is  possessed  of 
conscience  and  will ;  he  has  a  natural  ability  to  do  all  duty,  not¬ 
withstanding  the  certainty  that  without  the  operations  of  grace, 
he  will  not,  —  that  is,  notwithstanding  his  moral  inability.  The 
first  is  the  ground  of  responsibility ;  the  second,  of  dependence. 
Both  are  absolute. 

We  turn  now  to  the  second  great  subject  on  which  Edwards 
entered  the  lists  against  the  Arminians,  for  the  purpose  of  recover¬ 
ing  the  ground  which  Watts,  Doddridge,  and  other  half-hearted 
apologists  for  Calvinism  seemed  to  have  surrendered.  His  Doc¬ 
trine  of  Original  Sin  Defended  did  not  appear  until  1758,  just 
after  his  death.  In  this  treatise  he  blinks  no  difficulties;  but, 
having  established  by  cogent  reasoning  and  by  Scripture,  with 
appeals  to  heathen  as  well  as  Christian  authority,  the  tremendous 
fact  of  sin,  as  a  universal  characteristic  of  mankind,  he  endeavors 
to  prove  that  men  are  truly,  and  not  by  any  legal  fiction,  judged 
to  be  sinful  from  the  start,  and  literally  guilty  of  the  primal  trans¬ 
gression.  To  this  end,  he  seeks  to  bring  the  continuance  of  sin 
in  the  individuals  of  the  race,  onward  from  the  beginning  of  their 
personal  life,  under  the  familiar  law  of  habit.  It  is  analogous  to 
the  self-perpetuation  of  any  habit  which  arises  from  an  initial  act. 
To  prove  that  Adam’s  act  was  our  act,  he  launches  out  into  a 
bold  speculation  on  the  nature  of  identity.  Personal  identity,  he 
asserts,  is  the  effect  of  the  divine  will  and  ordinance.  If  it  con¬ 
sists  in  the  sameness  of  consciousness,  that  is  kept  up  by  divine 
acts  from  moment  to  moment.  If  it  be  thought  to  consist  in  the 
sameness  of  substance,  even  this  is  due  to  the  perpetual  divine 
preservation ;  and  preservation  is  not  to  be  distinguished  from 
constantly  repeated  acts  of  creation.  Our  identity  is  a  constituted 
identity,  dependent  upon  the  creative  will,  and  in  this  sense  arbi¬ 
trary,  yet  conformed  to  an  idea  of  order.  So  the  individuals  of 
the  human  race  are  the  continuation  of  Adam ;  they  truly  —  that 
is,  by  the  will  and  appointment  of  God  —  constitute  one  moral 
whole.  It  is  strictly  true  that  all  participated  in  the  act  by  which 

1  See  remarks  of  Prof.  E.  C.  Smyth  in  the  Andover  Review ,  March,  1890, 
in  review  of  observations  of  Professor  Allen  ( Life  of  Edwards ,  pp.  59,  60, 
297). 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


403 


“the  species  first  rebelled  against  God.”1  We  are  not  con¬ 
demned  for  another’s  evil  choice,  but  for  our  own,  and  the  prin¬ 
ciple  of  sin  within  us  is  only  the  natural  consequence  of  that 
original  act.  Time  counts  for  nothing  :  the  first  rising  of  evil 
inclination  in  us  is  one  and  the  same  with  the  first  rising  of  evil 
inclination  in  Adam  ;  it  is  the  members  participating  in,  and  con¬ 
senting  to,  the  act  of  the  head.  The  habit  of  sinning  follows 
upon  this  first  rising  of  evil  inclination,  in  us  as  in  Adam.  Such 
is  the  constitution  of  things ;  and  on  the  divine  constitution,  the 
persistence  of  individuality,  of  personal  consciousness  and  iden¬ 
tity,  equally  depends.  It  is  to  be  noticed  that,  in  defence  of  his 
theory,  Edwards  does  not  lay  hold  of  the  traducian  hypothesis  of 
the  evolution  of  souls.  He  admits  that  souls  are  created ;  but  so 
are  consciousness  and  the  substance  of  our  individual  being  at 
every  successive  instant  of  time.  Like  Anselm,  and  the  School¬ 
men  generally,  he  is  a  creationist.  It  is  evident  that  Locke’s 
curious  chapter  on  Identity  and  Diversity2  put  Edwards  on  the 
track  on  which  he  advanced  to  these  novel  opinions.  Locke  there 
attempts  to  prove  that  sameness  of  consciousness  is  the  sole  bond 
of  identity,  and  that  identity  would  remain  were  consciousness  dis¬ 
joined  from  one  substance  and  connected  with  another.  Edwards’s 
opinion  is  peculiar  to  himself,  but  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that 
the  initial  impulse  to  the  reflections  that  issued  in  it  was  imparted 
by  the  discussion  of  Locke.  Is  an  influence  of  Berkeley  as  well  as 
of  Locke  to  be  assumed  in  Edwards’s  speculation?  It  is  really 
the  application  of  the  Berkeleian  idea  to  the  mind  —  a  step  which 
of  course  Berkeley  himself  had  not  thought  of  taking.3 

The  ethical  theory  of  Edwards  is  propounded  in  his  masterly 

1  Edwards’s  Works,  Vol.  II.  p.  543.  2  Locke’s  Essay,  B.  II.  c.  27. 

3  Professor  Fraser,  in  his  ed.  of  Berkeley’s  Writings  (Vol.  I.  p.  179,  n.  91), 
says :  “  In  several  of  his  writings  Edwards  approaches  the  peculiar  doctrines 
of  Berkeley  regarding  the  material  world.  It  is  worthy  of  note  that  when 
Berkeley  was  in  Rhode  Island,  Edwards  was  settled  in  Massachusetts.”  See, 
also,  Vol.  II.  p.  155  n.  An  elaborate  paper  from  the  pen  of  Prof.  E.  C.  Smyth, 
published  in  the  Proceedings  of  the  Am.  Antiq.  Soc.  (1895),  discusses  the  “Early 
Writings  of  Jonathan  Edwards,  1714-1726.”  Professor  Smyth  writes  after  a 
careful  study  of  the  manuscripts.  Plis  conclusion  is  adverse  to  the  supposi¬ 
tion  that  Edwards  had  read  Berkeley.  “  From  across  the  waters,”  says  Pro¬ 
fessor  Smyth,  “  the  minds  that  were  most  stirring  his  own  were,  in  physics, 
Sir  Isaac  Newton’s;  in  philosophy,  Locke’s.”  The.  paper  referred  to  is 
highly  instructive  respecting  the  dates  and  chronological  relation  of  these 
early  writings  of  Edwards. 


404 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


treatise  on  the  “  Nature  of  True  Virtue.”  He  does  not  content  him¬ 
self,  as  philosophers  before  him  had  so  often  done,  with  the  inquiry, 
What  is  the  abstract  quality  of  virtue,  or  the  foundation  of  moral  ob¬ 
ligation  ?  but  he  sets  forth  the  nature  of  virtue  in  the  concrete,  or  the 
principle  of  goodness.  This  he  finds  to  be  benevolence,  or  love  to 
intelligent  being.  It  is  love  to  the  entire  society  of  intelligent  beings 
according  to  their  rank,  or,  to  use  his  phrase,  “the  amount  of  being” 
which  belongs  to  them.  It  is  thus  a  proportionate  love ;  supreme 
and  absolute  as  regards  God,  limited  as  regards  inferior  beings. 
Under  this  conception,  ethics  and  religion  are  inseparably  con¬ 
nected.  True  love  to  man  is  love  to  him  as  being,  or  as  having 
being  in  himself,  and  is  indissolubly  connected,  if  it  be  real  and 
genuine,  with  a  proportionately  greater  love  to  God.  This  benev¬ 
olence,  which  embraces  in  itself  all  goodness,  is  the  fountain  and 
essence  of  specific  virtues.  It  is  described  as  a  propensity  to 
being,  a  union  of  heart  to  intelligent  being,  a  consent  to  being, 
which  prompts  one  to  seek  the  welfare  of  the  objects  loved.  It 
is  not  synonymous  with  delight  in  the  happiness  of  others,  but  is 
the  spring  of  that  delight.  Now,  he  who  actually  exercises  this 
love  delights  in  the  same  love  when  it  is  seen  in  others ;  and  this 
delight  induces  and  involves  an  additional  love  to  them,  the  love 
of  complacency.  There  is  a  spiritual  beauty  in  benevolence 
which  is  perceived  only  through  experience.  The  relish  which 
this  beauty  excites  and  gratifies  is  possible  only  to  him  who  is 
himself  benevolent.  There  is  a  rectitude  in  benevolence,  a  fitness 
to  the  nature  of  the  soul  and  the  nature  of  things ;  and  the  per¬ 
ception  of  this  rectitude  awakens  the  sense  of  obligation,  and 
binds  all  men  to  be  benevolent.  The  natural  conscience  makes 
a  man  uneasy  “  in  the  consciousness  of  doing  that  to  others  which 
he  should  be  angry  with  them  for  doing  to  him,  if  they  were  in 
his  case,  and  he  in  theirs.”  This  feeling  may  be  resolved  into  a 
consciousness  of  being  inconsistent  with  himself,  of  a  disagreement 
with  his  own  nature.  With  the  feeling  of  approbation  and  disap¬ 
probation,  there  is  joined  a  sense  of  desert,  which  consists  in  a 
natural  agreement,  proportion,  and  harmony  between  malevolence 
or  injury  and  resentment  and  punishment.  An  essential  element 
in  Edwards’s  whole  theory  is  this  double  excellence  of  universal 
love  :  first,  a  rightness  recognized  by  all  men,  whether  they  be 
good  or  bad ;  and  a  peculiar,  transcendent  beauty  revealed  only 
•  to  the  good,  or  on  the  condition  of  the  exercise  of  love  as  a  prac- 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


405 


tical  principle.  Of  the  natural  conscience  in  its  relation  to  love  he 
says  :  “  Although  it  sees  not,  or  rather  does  not  taste  its  primary 
and  essential  beauty,  i.e.,  it  tastes  no  sweetness  in  benevolence 
to  being  in  general,  simply  considered,  for  nothing  but  general 
benevolence  itself  can  do  that ;  yet  this  natural  conscience,  common 
to  mankind,  may  approve  it  from  that  uniformity,  equality,  and  jus¬ 
tice,  which  there  is  in  it ;  and  the  demerit  which  is  seen  in  the 
contrary,  consisting  in  the  natural  agreement  between  the  con¬ 
trary,  and  being  hated  of  being-in-general.”1  The  moral  sense 
which  is  common  to  all  men,  and  the  spiritual  sense  which  belongs 
to  the  benevolent,  may  be  called  sentiments ;  but  not  with  the 
idea  that  they  are  merely  subjective  or  arbitrary,  and  not  corre¬ 
spondent  to  the  objective  reality.  The  quality  of  rightness  and 
the  quality  of  spiritual  beauty  inhere  in  love  as  intrinsic  attributes. 
By  means  of  this  distinction  between  the  intrinsic  rectitude  and 
the  spiritual  beauty  of  the  virtuous  principle,  Edwards  built  up 
a  foundation  for  his  doctrine  of  spiritual  light,  or  for  that  mystical 
side  which  has  been  pointed  out  in  his  character  and  in  his  con¬ 
ception  of  religion.  The  reaction  of  benevolence  against  its  oppo¬ 
site  as  being  unrighteous  and  offensive  to  the  sense  of  spiritual 
beauty,  and  as  an  injury  to  the  beings  on  whom  benevolence  fixes 
its  regard,  is  a  form  of  hatred.  This  hatred  on  the  part  of  God 
and  of  all  benevolent  beings  toward  “  the  statedly  and  irreclaim- 
ably  evil  ”  inspires  a  feeling  of  satisfaction  in  their  punishment. 
Those  descriptions  in  Edwards  of  the  sufferings  of  incorrigible 
evil-doers  in  the  future  world,  and  of  the  contentment  of  the 
righteous  at  beholding  them,  which  grate  on  the  sensibility  of 
most  of  the  present  generation,  he  felt  no  difficulty  in  reconciling 
with  the  doctrine  that  impartial  and  universal  love  is  the  essence 
of  virtue. 

The  disinterested  love  which  is  identical  with  virtue  is  the  an¬ 
tipode  of  self-love.  If  self-love  signifies  nothing  but  a  man’s  loving 
what  is  pleasing  to  him,  this  is  only  to  say  that  he  loves  what  he 
loves ;  since,  with  Edwards,  loving  an  object  is  synonymous  with 
being  pleased  with  it.  It  is  “  the  same  thing  as  a  man’s  having  a 
faculty  of  will.”  2  But  the  proper  meaning  of  self-love  is  regard 
to  self  in  distinction  from  others,  or  regard  to  some  private  inter¬ 
est.  Edwards  undertakes  to  resolve  all  particular  affections  which 
do  not  involve  a  regard  to  universal  being,  and  a  willingness  that  the 
1  Works,  Vol.  III.  p.  132.  2  Ibid.  Vol.  III.  p.  118. 


40  6 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


subordinate  interest  should  give  way  whenever  it  competes  with  the 
rights  and  the  interests  of  the  whole,  into  self-love.  This  is  true  of 
habits  of  feeling  and  actions  that  are  done  at  the  dictate  of  natu¬ 
ral  conscience,  which  may  be  looked  upon  “  as  in  some  sort  aris¬ 
ing  from  self-love,  or  self-union,”  or  the  uneasy  consciousness  of 
being  inconsistent  with  one’s  self.  The  most  questionable  feature 
in  Edwards’s  whole  theory  is  the  position  to  which  the  natural 
perception  of  right  and  sense  of  moral  obligation  are  reduced,  in 
order  to  exalt  the  sense  of  spiritual  beauty  as  the  one  necessary 
attendant  of  true  virtue.  But  he  is  not  justly  chargeable  with  dis¬ 
placing  the  particular  affections  —  love  of  family,  patriotism,  and 
the  like  —  although  Robert  Hall  thinks  that  Godwin  built  up  his 
ethical  notions  on  the  reasoning  of  Edwards,  as  Godwin  avowedly 
leaned  upon  Edwards  in  his  exposition  of  liberty  and  necessity.1 

In  the  dissertation  on  “  God’s  Chief  End  in  Creation,”  which, 
like  the  essay  on  the  “  Nature  of  True  Virtue,”  was  posthumous, 
Edwards  “o’erleaped  these  earthly  bounds,”  and  sought  to  unveil 
the  motive  of  the  Deity  in  calling  the  universe  into  being.  He  rejects 
every  notion  of  an  indigence,  insufficiency,  and  mutability  in  God, 
or  any  dependence  of  the  Creator  on  the  creature  for  any  part  of 
His  perfection  or  happiness.  Every  pantheistic  hypothesis  of  this 
nature  he  repels.  God  must  be  conceived  of  as  estimating  the 
sum  total  of  His  own  excellence  at  its  real  worth.  This  regard  for 
His  glory,  or  His  glorious  perfections,  not  because  they  are  His,  but 
for  their  own  sake,  is  not  an  unworthy  feeling  or  motive  to  action. 
The  disposition  to  communicate  the  infinite  fulness  of  good  which 
inheres  eternally  in  Himself,  ad  extra ,  is  an  original  property  of 
His  nature.  This  incited  Him  to  create  the  world.  That  His  attri¬ 
butes  should  be  exerted  and  should  be  known  and  esteemed,  and 
become  a  source  of  joy  to  other  beings,  is  fit  and  proper.  His 
delight  in  His  creatures  does  not  militate  against  His  independence, 
since  the  creation  emanates  from  Himself,  and  this  delight  may  be 
resolved  into  a  delight  in  Himself.  In  God,  the  love  of  Himself 
and  the  love  of  the  public  are  not  to  be  distinguished  as  in  man, 
“  because  God’s  being,  as  it  were,  comprehends  all.”  Nor  is  it 
selfish  in  Him  to  seek  for  the  holiness  and  happiness  of  the  creat¬ 
ure,  out  of  supreme  regard  to  Himself,  or  from  the  esteem  which 
He  has  for  that  excellence,  a  portion  of  which  He  imparts  to  them, 

1  Compare  Hall’s  IVorks  (Bohn’s  ed.),  p.  284;  Godwin’s  Political  Justice , 
Vol.  I.  p.  279  (Dublin,  1793). 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


407 


and  which  He  reasonably  desires  to  see  an  object  of  honor,  and 
the  source  of  a  joy  like  His  own.  “  For  it  is  the  necessary  conse¬ 
quence  of  true  esteem  and  love,  that  we  value  others’  esteem  of 
the  same  object,  and  dislike  the  contrary.  For  the  same  reason, 
God  approves  of  others’  esteem  and  love  of  Himself.”  The  creat¬ 
ure  is  intended  for  an  eternally  increasing  nearness  and  union  to 
God.  Under  this  idea,  his  “  interest  must  be  viewed  as  one  with 
God’s  interest,”  and  is  therefore  not  regarded  by  God  as  a  thing 
distinct  and  separate  from  Himself.  Thus,  all  the  activities  of  God 
return  to  Himself  as  the  final  goal. 

Edwards  was  acquainted  with  Hutcheson.  “  The  calm,  stable, 
universal  good-will  to  all,  or  the  most  extensive  benevolence,”  and 
“  the  relish  and  reputation  of  it,”  or  “the  esteem  and  good-will  of 
a  higher  kind  to  all  in  whom  it  is  found,”  are  phrases  of  this  writer1 
which  remind  us  of  the  American  philosopher.  But  the  scientific, 
construction  of  the  theory  of  virtue,  especially  in  the  place  which 
love  to  God  finds  in  it,  is  original  with  Edwards.  The  younger 
Fichte  expresses  admiration  for  this  essay,  which  is  only  known  to 
him  through  the  brief  sketch  of  Mackintosh.  “  What  he  reports 
of  it,”  says  Fichte,  “  appears  to  me  excellent.”  2  He  speaks  of 
the  bold  and  profound  thought  that  God,  as  the  source  of  love  in 
all  creatures,  on  the  same  ground  loves  Himself  .infinitely  more 
than  any  finite  being ;  and  therefore  in  the  creation  of  the  world 
can  have  no  other  end  than  the  revelation  of  His  own  perfection, 
which,  it  is  to  be  observed,  consists  in  love.3  “  So,”  concludes 
Fichte,  “  has  this  solitary  thinker  of  North  America  risen  to  the 
deepest  and  loftiest  ground  which  can  underlie  the  principle  of 
morals  :  universal  benevolence  which  in  us,  as  it  were,  is  poten¬ 
tially  latent,  and  in  morality  is  to  emerge  into  full  consciousness 
and  activity,  is  only  the  effect  of  the  bond  of  love,  which  encloses 
us  all  in  God.”  The  degree  or  amount  of  being  is  a  somewhat 
obscure  idea ;  nevertheless  the  German  critic  considers  it  a  true 
and  profound  thought  that  the  degree  of  the  perfection  of  a  being 
is  to  determine  the  degree  of  love  to  him.  Mackintosh,  to  whom 
Fichte  owed  his  knowledge  of  Edwards,  apparently  fails,  in  one 
passage,  to  apprehend  Edwards’s  distinction  between  love  and 
esteem,  or  benevolence  and  moral  complacency. 

1  Moral  Philosophy ,  Vol.  I.  p.  69. 

2  “  Was  dieser  von  ihm  berichtet  finden  wir  votrefflich.”  System  der  Ethik , 

Vol.  I.  p.  544-  3  Ibld-  PP-  544,  545- 


408 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


Shortly  before  his  death  Edwards  refers,  in  a  letter,  to  an  unfin¬ 
ished  work,  “a  body  of  divinity  in  an  entire  new  method,  being 
thrown  into  the  form  of  a  history.”  It  was  to  treat  of  the  redemp¬ 
tion  of  the  world  by  Christ  as  the  centre  toward  which  the  whole 
current  of  anterior  events  converged,  and  from  which  all  subse¬ 
quent  events  radiate.  There  were  to  be  interwoven  in  the  work 
“all  parts  of  divinity,”  in  such  a  method  as  to  exhibit  to  the  best 
advantage  their  “admirable  contexture  and  harmony.”  The  con¬ 
ception  was  not  unlike  that  of  Augustine  in  the  De  Civitate  Dei . 
The  treatise,  in  its  unfinished  state,  was  published  after  the  author’s 
death,  under  the  title,  A  History  of  the  Work  of  Redemption,  con¬ 
taining  the  Outlines  of  a  Body  of  Divinity ,  including  a  View  of 
Church  History  in  a  Method  entirely  new.  In  its  incomplete 
form  it  remains  an  impressive  monument  of  the  variety  of  the 
author’s  powers  and  of  the  broad  range  of  his  studies  and  reflec¬ 
tions.  The  preparation  of  redemption,  the  accomplishment  of  it 
through  the  life  and  death  of  Christ,  and  its  effects,  are  the  three 
divisions  into  which  the  book  is  cast.  He  compares  the  work  of 
redemption,  which  he  undertakes  to  delineate  in  its  orderly  prog¬ 
ress,  to  “  a  temple  that  is  building :  first  the  workmen  are  sent 
forth,  then  the  materials  are  gathered,  the  ground  is  fitted,  and 
the  foundation  laid ;  then  the  superstructure  is  erected,  one  part 
after  another,  till  at  length  the  top  stone  is  laid  and  all  finished.”1 
Of  course  the  acts  of  the  drama,  which  are  still  in  the  future,  have 
to  be  learned  from  prophecy. 

Edwards’s  treatise  on  “  Religious  Affections  ”  was  published  in 
1746.  His  satisfaction  with  the  results  of  the  Revival  was  mingled 
with  not  a  little  disappointment.  A  portion  of  the  converts  fell 
back  to  their  former  life.  Excitement  of  the  emotions  was 
attended  by  evil  as  well  as  good  fruits.  One  design  of  this 
treatise  was  to  sift  the  converts,  to  distinguish  between  religious 
feelings  which  are  sound  and  such  as  are  unhealthy  or  spurious. 
The  analysis  is  carried  so  far  —  for  example,  in  the  distinction 
of  natural  gratitude  from  pious  gratitude,  and  so  in  respect  to 
other  feelings  —  that  the  effect  of  the  book  was  to  awaken  in  the 
minds  of  many  good  Christians  in  after  days  a  distrust,  the  anti¬ 
pode  of  the  Assurance  which  the  Reformers  valued  as  a  great 
advantage  of  their  doctrine.  But  the  treatise  presents  the  author’s 
ideal  of  religious  experience.  It  makes  the  indwelling  of  God’s 

1  Works,  Vol.  III.  p.  1 7 1. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


409 


Spirit  in  the  souls  of  true  believers  the  source  of  an  inward  state 
which  the  natural  man  cannot  conceive  of,  and  begetting  a  love 
of  God  from  pure  delight  in  His  holiness,  —  a  love  which  is  the 
fountain  of  all  Christian  virtues.  In  this  treatise  the  mystical 
element  in  Edwards,  the  elements  of  insight  and  intuition  in  his 
religious  thoughts,  find  a  full  expression. 

I11  Five  Sermons  on  Justification  Edwards  includes  a  defence 
of  the  proposition  that  faith  justifies,  not  as  being  morally  worthy, 
but  as  a  vinculum  connecting  the  soul  with  Christ.  In  an  essay 
on  the  “  Trinity,”  he  presents  an  ingenious  philosophical  defence 
of  the  Athanasian  doctrine.  A  paper  by  Edwards  on  “The  Satis¬ 
faction  of  Christ  ”  is  one  of  the  most  profound  of  his  numerous 
discussions.  He  begins  with  the  statement  that,  where  there  is 
sin,  something  of  the  nature  of  compensation  is  required,  —  either 
punishment  or  a  repentance,  humiliation,  and  sorrow  which  are 
proportionate  to  the  guilt  incurred.  No  repentance  answerable 
to  the  guilt  of  sin  is  possible  to  men.  This  Edwards  avers  on  the 
ground  of  the  infinitude  of  guilt.  Only  a  brief  sketch  of  the 
principal  points  in  the  exposition  can  here  be  given  :  — 

1.  Christ  is  first  presented  in  the  character  of  an  Intercessor. 
Nor  is  this  conception  entirely  dropped  out  of  mind  in  the 
process  of  the  discussion.  As  a  prerequisite  to  this  office,  He 
must  enter  fully  into  the  mind  of  the  offended  party,  as  well  as 
the  distress  of  the  party  offending.  This  absolute  sympathy,  or 
identification  of  Himself  in  feeling,  with  both  parties,  is  neces¬ 
sary  to  qualify  Him  to  intercede.  Without  it,  His  intercessions 
would  not  be  intelligent  on  His  own  part,  or  acceptable  and 
prevailing. 

2.  The  sympathy  of  Christ  with  God  and  with  man,  the  offended 
One  and  the  offender,  was  perfected  by  means  of  His  death.  Then 
and  thereby  it  attained  to  its  consummation.  Then  He  under¬ 
stood  fully  what  guilt  involves  ;  He  appreciated  both  the  holy 
resentment  of  God,  and  the  criminality  and  forlorn  situation  of 
man.  We  do  not  depart  from  the  spirit  of  Edwards’s  teaching, 
if  we  say  that  the  prayer  of  Christ  for  His  enemies,  on  the  cross, 
emanated  from  a  state  of  mind  that  absolutely  meets  the  condi¬ 
tions  of  acceptable  intercession. 

3.  The  substitution  of  Christ  was  primarily  in  His  own  heart. 
It  was  love,  which  comes  under  another’s  burden,  makes  another’s 
suffering  lot  its  own,  lays  aside  self,  as  it  were,  and  becomes  an- 


4io 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


other.  This  inward  substitution  led  to,  and  was  completed  in, 
the  final  act  of  self-sacrifice. 

4.  By  His  voluntary  submission  to  death,  Christ  signified  His 
absolute  approval  of  the  righteousness  of  the  law,  on  its  penal,  as 
well  as  its  preceptive  side.  He  gave  the  strongest  possible  proof 
of  His  sense  of  the  justice  of  the  divine  administration  in  the 
allotment  of  death  to  the  sinner.  Being  among  men,  and  one  of 
them,  He  honored  and  sanctioned  the  law  both  by  keeping  it,  by 
overcoming  temptation,  and  also  by  sharing,  without  a  murmur, 
in  the  righteous  penalty  which  He  had  not  personally  incurred. 

The  originality  and  attractiveness  of  Edwards’s  discussion  lies 
in  the  circumstance  that  it  is  an  attempt  to  find  the  moral  and 
spiritual  elements  of  the  Atonement,  and  thus  unfold  its  rationale. 
It  is  not  in  the  quantity  of  the  Saviour’s  suffering  alone,  but  in  the 
sources  and  meaning  of  it,  that  he  is  interested.  While  holding 
that  Christ  suffered  the  penalty  of  sin,  Edwards  not  only  care¬ 
fully  excludes  the  idea  that  He  was  in  consciousness,  or  in  fact, 
an  object  of  wrath ;  ■  but  he  dwells  also  upon  those  spiritual  per¬ 
ceptions  and  experiences  which  gave  significance  to  the  pain  which 
He  endured.1 

The  “  Edwardeans,”  the  theologians  who  modified  Calvinism 
under  the  stimulus  imparted  by  the  writings  of  Edwards,  and  in 
a  sense  built  on  his  foundations,  were  at  first  a  small  minority. 
They  grew  in  numbers  until  their  theology  well-nigh  superseded 
the  traditional  type  of  Calvinism,  although  they  were  divided 
among  themselves  into  different  schools.  On  the  other  hand, 
among  the  Arminians  who  looked  with  disfavor  on  the  Revival 
there  was  developed  a  tendency  which  issued  in  the  Unitarian 
movement. 

We  have  first  to  attend  to  the  Edwardean  leaders,  the  represent¬ 
atives  of  “  the  New  England  Theology.”  Their  general  aim,  like 
that  of  Edwards  himself,  was  to  wrest  from  Arminianism  its 
weapons.  Their  purpose  was  to  maintain  the  distinctive  principle 
of  Calvinism,  the  “  sovereignty  ”  of  God,  but,  at  the  same  time, 
to  present  in  pulpit  instructions  such  a  statement  of  Christianity 

1  On  the  memorial  window  in  honor  of  Edwards,  in  the  chapel  of  Yale 
College,  of  which  he  is  an  illustrious  graduate,  stands  the  just  inscription  : 
“  Ionathan  Edwards  summi  in  ecclesia  ordinis  vates  fuit,  rerum  sacrarum 
philosophus  qui  sseculorum  admirationem  movet,  Dei  cultor  mystice  amantis- 
simus:  hie  studebat,  docebat.  ” 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


4H 


as  would  leave  unrepenting  men  without  excuse  for  not  accepting 
the  Gospel.  Joseph  Bellamy  (1719-90)  published  in  1750  the 
True  Religion  Delineated ,  an  able  and  spirited  work,  in  which  the 
way  of  salvation  was  set  forth.  It  was  read  in  manuscript  by 
Edwards,  and  was  commended  by  him.  It  explains  Original  Sin 
by  the  covenant  or  representative  hypothesis.1  Yet  in  another 
publication  in  1758,  Bellamy  refers  to  Edwards’s  unpublished 
treatise  on  this  subject.  In  his  Wisdom  of  God  in  the  Permission  • 
of  Sin  (1758),  Bellamy  contended  that  the  system  is  “more  holy 
and  happy  than  if  sin  and  misery  had  never  entered.”  God 
could  have  prevented  sin  without  infringing  on  free-will.  He 
permits  sin,  in  itself  “  infinitely  evil,”  because  it  can  be  overruled 
to  a  greater  good.  The  question  whether  unconverted  persons 
should  be  urged  to  pray  for  regeneration,  read  the  Scriptures  as  a 
means  to  this  end,  etc.,  —  the  question  relative  to  “unregenerate 
doings,”  —  was  much  discussed.  Bellamy  takes  ground  in  the 
affirmative.  In  relation  to  the  Atonement,  Bellamy  represents  it 
to  be  a  satisfaction  of  divine  justice  in  the  sense  that  God,  con-  r 
sistently  with  His  honor  and  holiness,  can  offer  pardon  to  men. 
Christ  died  for  the  salvation  of  all  who  will  repent  and  believe. 
The  conception  resembles  that  of  Amyraut.  It  is  even  said  in 
one  place  that  God  “  heartily  ”  invites  all.2  This  goes  beyond 
Bellamy’s  usual  statement  that  “  God  has  opened  a  door  for  all  to 
be  saved  conditionally.”  There  is  at  least  a  near  approach  to  the 
doctrine  of  a  general  Atonement.  Samuel  Hopkins  (1721-1803) 
was  a  pupil  of  Edwards.  In  certain  places  he  appears  to  sanc¬ 
tion  Edwards’s  theory  of  an  identity  with  Adam.3  But  his  ordi¬ 
nary  and  more  precise  teaching  is  that  men  are  sinners  from  birth 
through  a  divine  “  constitution,”  establishing  an  infallible  certainty 
that,  if  Adam  sins,  all  men  after  him  will  begin  their  existence  as 
sinners.  But  their  sin  is  their  own,  and  not  his.4  It  is  declared 
to  be  a  free  act.  As  soon  as  children  are  capable  of  “  motions 
and  exercises  ”  of  heart  contrary  to  the  law  of  God,  they  sin, 
although  “they  have  no  consciousness  ”  that  such  “  exercises  ”  are 
wrong.  Hopkins  brought  in  the  doctrine  of  “divine  efficiency” 
in  the  production  even  of  sinful  choices.  This  is  deduced  from 

1  See  Bellamy’s  Works,  Vol.  I.  p.  300.  2  Ibid.  Vol.  I.  p.  383. 

3  See  Hopkins’s  Works  (1852),  Vol.  I.  p.  199.  He  published  with  com¬ 

mendation  Edwards’s  book  on  Original  Sin. 

4  Ibid.  Vol.  I.  pp.  21 1,  235. 


412 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


Edwards’s  doctrine  of  a  prior  infallible  certainty  of  their  recur¬ 
rence.  From  this  time,  imputation  is  discarded  from  the  New 
England  theology.  The  theory  of  the  Covenant,  with  Adam  as  a 
representative,  is  exchanged  for  the  theory  of  “  sovereign  consti¬ 
tution,”  or  fixed,  established  connection.  Thenceforward  the  K 
doctrine  was  that  Adam’s  sin  carried  with  it,  by  a  divine  decree, 
the  certainty  of  his  descendants  being  sinners  from  the  outset  of 
•  their  personal  being.  From  Edwards’s  definition  of  virtue  as 
“  love  to  being  in  general,”  Hopkins  drew  out  his  exposition  of 
disinterested  benevolence.  Man  must  love  himself,  not  as  self \ 
but  only  as  a  portion  of  universal  being.  Hence  followed  the 
doctrine  of  “  unconditional  resignation,”  or  a  willingness  to  be 
finally  cast  off  and  to  perish,  if  the  glory  of  God  require  it.  A 
doctrine  often  brought  forward  by  the  mystics  —  for  example,  in 
the  “German  Theology”  —  is  presented  by  Hopkins  and  his  fol¬ 
lowers  in  the  hard  terms  of  logic.  By  them,  also,  it  is  made  an 
element  of  practical  piety.  Hopkins  asserted  the  sinfulness  of 
“unregenerate  doings,”  and  the  consequent  unlawfulness  of  ex¬ 
horting  sinners  to  pray  for  conversion  or  to  do  anything  prelimi¬ 
nary  to  conversion.  The  first  duty  is  to  repent  and  believe. 
Thus  there  was  combined  the  highest  view  of  divine  sovereignty 
with  the  highest  assertion  of  “ natural  ability”  and  consequent 
responsibility.  The  certainty  of  conversion,  whenever  it  occurs, 
is  the  effect  of  the  special  agency  of  God’s  Spirit,  in  pursuance 
of  His  elective  purpose.  Like  Bellamy,  Hopkins  defends  the 
thesis  that  sin,  as  a  part  of  the  divine  system,  although  the  evil 
act  of  the  creature,  is  .the  necessary  means  of  the  greatest  good. 

The  younger  Edwards  —  Jonathan  Edwards,  Jr. —  (1745-1801) 
agrees  with  Hopkins,  his  teacher,  respecting  the  sinfulness  of  “  un¬ 
regenerate  doings  ”  and  the  use  of  “  means  ”  by  the  unconverted 
to  pave  the  way  to  repentance  and  conversion.  He  concurs  with 
Hopkins  in  his  idea  of  Original  Sin.  He  dissents  from  his  views 
respecting  disinterested  benevolence.  Regeneration,  the  younger 
Edwards  defines  to  be  the  communication  of  a  new  spiritual  sense 
or  taste,  “in  consequence  of  which  light  breaks  in  upon  the  under¬ 
standing,  and  joy  enters  the  heart.”  His  principal  contribution 
to  theology  is  his  Sewions  on  the  Atonement  together  with  his 
Brief  Thoughts  on  the  same  subject.  With  Grotius,  he  denies 
that  the  Atonement  is  the  payment  of  a  debt.  It  is  a  satisfaction 
to  the  general  justice  of  God,  by  which  is  meant  that  regard  to  the 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


413 


greatest  good  which  leads  Him,  while  bestowing  forgiveness,  to 
sustain  the  authority  of  law.  “  Christ  suffered  that  in  the  sinner’s 
stead  which  as  effectually  tended  to  discourage  or  prevent  trans¬ 
gression  and  excite  to  obedience  as  the  punishment  of  the  trans¬ 
gressor  according  to  the  letter  of  the  law  would  have  done.”  The 
end  of  punishment  is  the  restraining  of  others  from  sin.  The 
Atonement  does  this  because  it  shows  God’s  hatred  of  sin  and  His 
determination  to  punish  it.  Vicarious  suffering  not  being  the  dis¬ 
charge  of  a  debt,  does  not  bind  the  Ruler  to  remit  the  penalty. 
Other  conditions  of  pardon  may  be  imposed.  The  matter  of  the 
Atonement  is  the  sufferings  of  Christ.  His  active  obedience  is 
only  a  condition  sine  qua  non. 

Thenceforward  the  governmental  theory  of  the  Atonement 
became  a  characteristic  of  the  New  England  orthodoxy.  It  is 
remarkable  that  substantially  the  Grotian  or  Arminian  tenet  on 
this  subject  was  set  in  connection  with  so  high  a  doctrine  of  divine 
sovereignty.  But  this  very  idea  of  God’s  sovereignty  inspired  a 
reluctance  to  seem  to  fetter  the  exercise  of  it  by  assuming  that 
God  is  bound  morally  to  extend  pardon  to  the  elect.  Moreover, 
the  New  England  divines  were  ever  in  quest  of  a  theology  that 
could  be  preached  and  defended  against  gainsayers.  Under  their 
doctrine  it  could  not  be  said  by  the  impenitent,  in  reference  to 
exhortations  to  turn  to  God,  that  the  Atonement  was  not  intended, 
in  any  proper  sense,  for  them ;  that  is  to  say,  did  not  spring  from 
love  to  them. 

Nathaniel  Emmons  (1745-1801)  was  on  most  points  of  the 
same  mind  as  Hopkins.  He  taught  in  the  most  explicit  terms 
that  God  is  the  universal  cause  —  the  cause  of  sinful  as  well  as 
holy  actions.  But  He  creates  men  free,  and  because  they  are  sin¬ 
ful  it  does  not  follow  that  He  is,  any  more  than  He  resembles  the 
poison  of  the  asp  which  He  creates.  Men  begin  to  sin,  “  proba¬ 
bly,”  as  soon  as  life  begins,  —  a  fact  resulting  from  the  sin  of 
Adam.  They  are  not,  however,  answerable  for  his  transgression  : 
all  sin  is  actual  sin.  All  sins  are  “  exercises  ”  of  will.  But  in 
Emmons,  as  in  so  many,  affections  or  feelings  and  will  are  not 
carefully  discriminated.  So  strongly  did  Emmons  emphasize  this 
atomic  view  of  character  that  he  was  understood  to  teach  that  the 
mind  consists  of  a  chain  of  acts  or  exercises  with  no  substratum  of 
personality  beneath.  In  this  part  of  his  system  we  clearly  discern 
the  influence  of  Edwards’s  idea  of  substance  and  consciousness  as  a 


4T4 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


continuous  series  of  creative  acts.  Yet  the  strongest  language  is 
used  in  the  assertion  of  “  natural  ability,”  nothing  being  wanting 
but  choices  to  render  a  sinful  man  holy.  The  “  unconditional 
resignation  ”  taught  by  Hopkins  is  reaffirmed.  Justification  is 
defined  to  be  pardon.  Being  pardoned,  an  imperfect  Christian  is 
rewarded  for  the  amount  of  holiness  of  which  he  is  possessed. 
But  his  distinction  from  an  unregenerate  person  is  that  some  of  his 
“  exercises  ”  are  holy,  while  in  such  a  person  all  the  exercises 
are  morally  evil.  Each  exercise  is  perfect  in  its  kind.  On  this 
idea  of  the  nature  of  Christian  character  Emmons  differed  from 
Hopkins. 

Opposed  to  the  peculiarities  of  Hopkins  was  another  school  of 
Edwardeans,  of  whom  President  Dwight  of  Yale  College  (1752- 
1817)  was  the  most  distinguished  representative.  An  Hopkinsian 
in  early  life,  he  discarded  the  special  opinions  of  that  school.  His 
system  is  exhibited  in  a  series  of  sermons.  Dwight  rejects  “  divine 
efficiency”  in  respect  to  evil  actions.  A  discourse,  entitled  “The 
Soul  of  Man,  not  a  Chain  of  Ideas  and  Exercises,”  is  aimed  at 
Emmons’s  philosophy.  In  it,  he  speaks  of  theology  “  in  this  part 
of  the  country  ”  as  “  verging  towards  Pantheism.”  He  is  moderate 
in  his  Calvinism.  He  holds  to  the  previous  certainty  of  all  events, 
to  the  divine  permission  of  sin,  that  foreknowledge  and  decrees 
are  “  coetaneous.”  Virtue  is  founded  in  utility,  —  that  is,  in  its 
tendency  to  promote  the  happiness  of  the  universe.  Virtue  in  the 
concrete  is  benevolence ;  sin  is  selfishness.  Dwight  rejects  the 
doctrine  of  imputation.  We  are  not  responsible  for  Adam’s  sin. 
Through  his  sin,  we  become  sinners,  but  how  we  cannot  explain. 
Nevertheless,  Dwight  asserts  that  infants  are  “  contaminated  in 
their  moral  nature,”  and  that  this  is  proved  by  their  death. 
Regeneration  does  not  consist  in  the  creation  of  holy  exercises, 
but  in  the  communication  of  a  new  taste  or  disposition ;  it  is 
instantaneous,  and  at  the  moment  imperceptible  by  the  subject  of 
it.  Dwight  is  strenuous  in  advocating  “  the  use  of  means  ”  —  of 
prayer,  etc.  —  on  the  part  of  the  unregenerate. 

Excelled  by  none  of  the  New  England  divines,  after  the  elder 
Edwards,  as  a  metaphysician,  a  theological  teacher,  and  as  a 
preacher  of  impressive  power,  was  Nathaniel  W.  Taylor  (1786- 
1858).  He  was  a  pupil  of  Dwight.  He  undertook  to  complete 
what  he  considered  an  unaccomplished  effort  of  the  Edwardeans 
to  reconcile  human  dependence  and  personal  responsibility.  To 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


415 


this  end  he  held  that  the  conception  of  “  natural  ability”  must 
have  a  reality  and  fulness  of  meaning  not  conceded  to  it  by  them. 
There  is  no  such  thing  as  hereditary  sin.  Nor  is  it  correct  to 
say  that  the  soul  is  “  corrupt  ”  prior  to  the  exertion  of  moral 
agency.  When  it  is  said  that  all  men  are  sinners  by  nature,  it  is 
meant  that  under  all  the  appropriate  circumstances  of  life  they 
will  sin  until  renewed  by  the  Gospel.  Their  sin  is  the  result  of 
two  factors,  —  their  subjective  constitution  in  its  present  condition, 
and  their  circumstance.  To  neither  can  the  fact  be  exclusively  re¬ 
ferred.  Nor  is  it  certain  that  an  infant,  transferred  to  heaven  before 
a  sinful  act,  would,  left  to  himself,  there  develop  a  sinful  character. 
All  sin  is  •  voluntary.  In  saying  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as 
hereditary  sin,  the  Hopkinsians  were  right.  But  they  were  wrong 
in  resolving  sin  into  particular  acts  of  will.  Rather  is  sin  a  per¬ 
manent  principle  or  state  of  the  will,  an  abiding  choice  and 
motive  of  subordinate  choices ;  and  the  same  is  true  of  holiness. 
Man  is  the  proximate  cause  of  all  his  voluntary  states  and  actions. 
Into  the  idea  of  freedom  or  “  ability,”  Taylor  introduced  the  power 
of  contrary  choice,  which  he  held  to  be  continuous  and  perpet¬ 
ual  and  indispensable  to  accountable  agency.  Had  he  gone  no 
farther,  his  theory  would  be  Arminian,  if  not  Pelagian,  as  his  oppo¬ 
nents  declared  it  to  be.  But  the  prior  certainty  of  all  moral 
choices  was  also  asserted ;  and  this  certainty  was  admitted  to  be 
the  result,  in  each  case,  of  their  antecedents.  In  other  words, 
there  is  a  special  order  of  causes  —  “  motives  ”  they  are  called  — 
which  give  the  certainty,  but  not  the  necessity  of  their  effect. 
The  formula,  in  a  brief  phrase,  is  “certainty  with  power  to  the 
contrary”;  the  certainty  of  a  persistence  of  all  men  in  sin,  from 
the  beginning  of  moral  agency,  until,  under  the  influences  of 
grace,  they  are  converted.  Conversion  is  the  superseding  of  the 
wrong  governing  principle,  love  to  the  world,  for  the  only  right 
ruling  principle,  love  to  God.  Taylor  brought  in  the  threefold, 
instead  of  the  twofold,  division  of  mental  faculties.  The  sensibility, 
the  involuntary  nature,  which  is  neither  morally  good  nor  morally 
evil,  is  capable  of  being  acted  upon  by  the  truths  of  the  Gospel, 
and  by  its  movements  to  become  the  motive  of  a  reversal  of  the 
governing  purpose,  which  is  the  essence  of  character.  'The  neutral 
district  in  the  soul,  having  this  capacity,  was  considered  to  be  the 
natural  love  of  happiness  —  to  which  the  not  wholly  fit  name  of 
“  self-love  ”  was  given.  Thus  in  man,  irrespective  of  grace,  there 


4i  6 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


is  a  full  equipment  for  obeying  the  divine  law,  for  accepting  the 
Gospel.  He  will  not,  although  he  can.  As  to  the  connection  of 
the  race  with  Adam,  their  sinful  actions  are  the  consequences, 
following  with  certainty,  but  there  is  no  necessity  such  as  destroys 
the  power  to  the  contrary. 

The  solutions,  which  had  been  proposed  by  his  New  England 
predecessors,  and  by  theologians  in  the  past  generally,  of  the 
problem  of  the  theodicy  Taylor  considered  to  be  inadequate.  Sin 
is  not  the  “  necessary  means  of  the  greatest  good.”  It  is  not 
better  that  sin  should  exist  than  that  it  should  not  exist.  Because 
it  is  better  that  sin  should  enter  into  the  system,  wherever  sin  is 
found  in  it,  than  that  it  should,  in  these  cases,  be  prevented  by 
divine  intervention  to  exclude  it,  the  conclusion  does  not  follow 
that  it  is  a  good  thing,  either  in  itself  or  “  all  things  considered.” 
It  might  and  would  be  prevented,  if  free  agents  avoided  sinning. 
As  to  the  exclusion  of  sin,  there  are  two  conceivable  ways  of 
effecting  it.  The  method  of  divine  power  may  be  incompatible 
with  the  constitution  of  the  best  system  of  the  universe,  in  which 
freedom  is  one  main  excellence. 

Redemption  is  a  method  of  excluding  sin  up  to  the  limit  pre¬ 
scribed  by  wisdom  —  by  a  regard  for  the  greatest  good  —  to  divine 
interposition.  Election  is  the  plan  of  God  for  securing  the  largest 
amount  of  holiness  and  consequent  happiness  which  the  necessary 
conditions'  of  the  system  render  it  possible  for  benevolence  to 
secure.  The  plan  of  the  dispensation  of  the  grace  of  the  spirit, 
as  for  the  dissemination  of  the  Gospel,  is  dictated  by  benevolence. 
Thus  grace  is  not  given  to  all  in  an  equal  measure.  The  elect  are 
such  as  yield  to  the  influences  of  grace  under  the  most  beneficent 
allotment  of  them.  One  reason  for  the  election  of  a  person  may 
be  his  greater  prospective  influence  in  the  kingdom.  This  was 
apparently  the  fact  in  the  case  of  the  Apostle  Paul.  Another 
reason  may  be  a  more  pliable  disposition  in  some.  But  reasons 
may  exist  which  are  to  us  inscrutable. 

There  were  many  who  looked  upon  “  Taylorism,”  not  as  a  vin¬ 
dication,  but  as  a  surrender  of  the  Calvinistic  positions.  A  warm 
controversy  arose  in  New  England.  Bennet  Tyler,  and  Leonard 
Woods,  Professor  at  Andover,  were  prominent  writers  against  the 
new  teaching  of  Dr.  Taylor,  Dr.  Fitch,  and  the  defenders  of  it.  The 
antagonists  generally  clung  to  the  belief  in  an  inherited,  properly 
sinful,  bias  or  tendency  to  evil-doing,  an  “  inclination  ”  prior  to 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


417 


personal  choice.  They  rejected  the  definition  of  regeneration  as 
simply  descriptive  of  a  reversal  of  the  central  voluntary  principle, 
viewed  from  the  side  of  divine  agency  in  leading  to  it.  And  they 
held  fast  to  the  thesis  that  sin  is  the  necessary  means  of  the  great¬ 
est  good,  and  to  the  proposition  that  the  exclusion  of  it  by  God 
from  the  best  moral  system  would  involve  no  contradiction  in  the 
nature  of  things. 

The  New  England  theology  was  cast  by  Dr.  Mahan  and  Charles 
Finney,  in  a  peculiar  form  which  bore  the  name  of  “  Oberlin 
Theology.”  Finney  (1792-1875)  taught  in  his  Lectures  on  Nyr- 
tematic  Theology  (1846)  that  virtue  is  the  choice  of  the  greatest 
happiness  of  the  universe,  including  God  ;  that  happiness  is  the 
only  ultimate  good,  giving  to  everything  else  its  value  ;  that  the 
principle  of  love,  the  only  virtue,  is  in  the  will ;  that  obligation  is 
limited  by  the  agent’s  power ;  that  when,  a  man’s  generic  choice 
or  purpose  is  to  promote  the  happiness  of  the  universe,  he  is  per¬ 
fectly  holy,  and  when  this  is  not  his  choice,  he  is  perfectly  sinful ; 
that  conversion  or  regeneration  is  a  change  of  purpose,  but  in 
effecting  it  there  is  an  agency  of  the  Holy  Spirit ;  that  Christian 
Perfection  is  goodness  up  to  the  measure  of  present  ability,  which 
limits  present  responsibility;  that  faith,  repentance,  sanctification, 
are  as  truly  the  conditions  of  Justification  as  the  Atonement,  which 
removes  an  obstacle  to  pardon.  The  doctrine  of  “  Perfection  ” 
was  considered  a  most  prominent  feature  of  the  Oberlin  Theology. 

A  younger  contemporary  of  Dr.  Taylor,  a  remarkably  able  and 
accomplished  expositor  of  the  New  England  divinity,  is  Edwards 
A.  Park,  who  was  long  a  teacher  of  theology  at  Andover.  But  his 
system  has  not  been  published.  Its  peculiar  features  may  be 
gathered  from  his  critical  biographies  of  Hopkins  and  Emmons, 
from  controversial  papers  in  opposition  to  “  Princeton  theology,”  1 
and  from  a  number  of  sermons.  Dr.  Park  is  a  champion  of  the 
doctrine  of  a  continued  power  of  contrary  choice,  coupled  with 
the  uniform  result  of  like  antecedents.  He  emphasizes  the  effect 
of  the  Fall  upon  the  propensities  to  inferior  good,  regards  regener¬ 
ation  as  a  divinely  effected  change  in  the  “  balance  of  sensibili¬ 
ties,”  and  advocates  the  proposition  that  the  rectitude  of  that 
benevolence,  which  is  the  sum  of  goodness,  is  a  simple  idea,  and 
not  the  tendency  to  produce  happiness. 

Surpassed  in  learning  and  philosophical  ability  by  none  of  the 

1  In  the  Bibliotheca  Sacra ,  Vols.  VIII.,  IX. 


4 1 8 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


New  England  School  since  the  elder  Edwards,  was  Henry  B.  ' 
Smith.1  With  Edwards,  he  maintains  the  idea  of  mediate  impu¬ 
tation.  “The  race  is  not  a  mere  aggregate  of  units,  but  rather 
a  physical  and  moral  unity.”  There  is  a  law  of  moral  descent, 
although  not  a  mystical  identity  of  substance.  Because  sin  is 
generic  as  well  as  individual,  we  come  into  the  world  in  a  state 
of  sin  and  death,  and  liable  to  penal  evils  now  and  hereafter.  Sin 
is  an  immanent  state  and  preference.  But  as  there  is  a  bond  of 
race  connecting  us  with  Adam,  so  by  a  natural  bond  are  we  con¬ 
nected  with  the  incarnate  Redeemer.  The  salvation  procured  by 
him  comes  to  us  individually  through  faith.  The  Atonement  is 
not  a  matter  of  pure  distributive  justice.  It  answers  the  ends  of 
“public  justice,” — that  is,  it  shows  God’s  supreme  love  of  holi¬ 
ness  and  hatred  of  sin.  Thus  the  Atonement  is  general.  Regen¬ 
eration  affects  the  immanent  preference,  which  includes  the 
affections  and  the  will.  It  illuminates  the  mind  and  gives  to  the 
will  a  new  bent. 

The  influence  of  the  writings  of  the  earlier  theologians  of  the 
Edwardean  class,  in  particular  of  the  elder  Edwards,  and  of 
Dwight,  was  extensive  in  Great  Britain  as  well  as  in  America.  An¬ 
drew  Fuller  professes  to  have  learned  his  theology  from  Edwards. 
The  same  is  true  of  Dr.  Thomas  Chalmers.  The  Sermons  of 
Dwight,  partly  from  their  attractive  rhetorical  character,  passed 
through  many  editions  in  England,  and  were  much  read  in  Scot¬ 
land.  In  America,  the  theology  of  the  New  England  schools 
eventually  encountered  the  hostility  of  those  Presbyterians  in 
the  Middle  States  who  adhered  strictly  to  the  Westminster  Con¬ 
fession.  The  spread  of  the  theological  principles  of  Dr.  Taylor 
beyond  the  limits  of  New  England,  was  a  potent  influence, 
along  with  others,  which  led  to  the  division  of  the  Presbyterian 
Church,  in  the  United  States,  into  the  “New  School”  and  the 
“  Old  School  ”  branch.  Many,  however,  who  fell  from  choice 
into  the  “  New  School  ”  division,  did  not  accept  the  distinctive 
peculiarities  of  Taylor’s  system. 

The  rise  and  progress  of  Anti-Trinitarian  opinions  in  New  Eng¬ 
land  resembled  the  like  changes  that  took  place  in  England  in 
the  same  period.  In  both  cases  there  was  a  reaction  against 
Puritan  theology  and  in  favor  of  the  Arminian  type  of  thought. 
The  English  controversial  writers  on  the  Trinity,  together  with  the 

1  See  his  Life  and  Work  (1881). 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


419 


writers  in  behalf  of  the  Arminian  ideas  of  sin  and  grace,  were, 
from  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century,  read  on  this  side  of 
the  Atlantic,  especially  in  Boston  and  its  vicinity.  The  “  Conven¬ 
tion  Sermon,”  preached  annually  in  that  town  to  the  Congrega¬ 
tional  clergy  of  Massachusetts,  according  as  the  preacher  was  of 
the  Calvinistic  or  of  the  opposite  school,  indicates  the  antagonism 
that  was  more  and  more  clearly  coming  to  the  surface.  As  early 
as  1722,  Cotton  Mather,  in  his  convention  discourse,  expresses 
alarm  at  signs  of  lower  views  being  cherished  respecting  the 
person  and  offices  of  Christ.  English  Arians  were  in  correspond¬ 
ence  with  American  ministers.  The  deviations  of  Watts  from  the 
orthodox  doctrine  were  not  without  their  influence.  In  connec¬ 
tion  with  a  more  or  less  conscious  and  explicit  loss  of  sympathy 
with  Calvinistic  orthodoxy,  there  grew  up  an  outspoken  hostility 
to  creeds  of  human  composition,  and  a  demand  for  a  large  charity 
and  liberty  of  thought  on  abstruse  questions  of  divinity.  In  1747, 
Jonathan  Mayhew  was  settled  as  a  pastor  in  Boston.  He  was  of 
the  class  familiar  with  the  writings  of  Locke,  Samuel  Clarke, 
Whiston,  John  Taylor  of  Norwich,  and  others  of  a  like  tendency. 
A  part  of  the  clergy,  on  account  of  his  Anti-Trinitarian  belief,  de¬ 
clined  to  take  part  in  Mahew’s  ordination.  In  his  published  ser¬ 
mons,  he  denounces  with  vigor  the  habit  of  magnifying  the  impor¬ 
tance  of  opinions  in  contrast  with  practices.  “  Since  the  substance 
of  Christian  duty  is  love  to  God  and  to  our  neighbor,”  he  says, 
“  this  shows  us  what  a  Gospel  minister’s  preaching  ought  chiefly 
to  turn  upon.”  He  is  not  to  dwell  on  “ speculative  points”  or 
“  metaphysical  niceties,”  but  on  the  two  commandments  enjoining 
love.  In  1750,  leading  ministers  in  the  neighborhood  of  Boston, 
and  many  of  the  educated  laity,  had  ceased  to  believe  in  the 
Trinity.  In  1768,  Dr.  Hopkins  prepared  a  sermon  to  be  preached 
in  Boston,  “  under  the  conviction  that  the  doctrine  of  the  divinity 
of  Christ  was  much  neglected,  if  not  disbelieved,  by  a  number  of 
the  ministers”  there.  In  1782  James  Freeman  was  chosen  pastor 
of  King’s  Chapel,  an  Episcopal  church  in  Boston.  As  the  bishop 
declined  to  ordain  him,  he  was  ordained,  in  1788,  by  his  congre¬ 
gation.  The  liturgy  was  altered  by  the  omission  of  passages  recog¬ 
nizing  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity.  “The  first  Episcopal  Church 
in  New  England  became  the  first  Unitarian  Church  in  America.” 
At  the  beginning  of  the  new  century,  a  majority  of  the  minis¬ 
ters  in  Eastern  Massachusetts  were  dissenters  from  the  orthodox 


420 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


doctrine.  The  division  of  parties  was  stimulated  and  accelerated 
by  the  acceptance  by  many  on  the  orthodox  side  of  the  severe 
tenets  of  Hopkins  and  Emmons.  In  1805,  the  election  of  Henry 
Ware,  a  Unitarian,  to  the  Hollis  Professorship  of  Divinity  in  Har¬ 
vard  College  was  the  signal  for  the  outbreaking  of  a  heated  con¬ 
troversy.  In  1810,  Noah  Worcester  published  the  Bible  News , 
in  which  Christ  was  said  to  be  a  being  derived  from  God,  but  not 
made  outright,  prior  to  the  Creation,  and  entering  into  the  flesh. 
He  broached  this  novel  opinion,  disclaiming  alike  the  Arian  and 
the  orthodox  doctrine.  From  about  this  time,  the  debate  be¬ 
tween  the  respective  parties,  through  periodicals  and  other  chan¬ 
nels,  was  prosecuted  with  increasing  zeal.  In  1815,  William 
Ellery  Channing,  who  was  to  become  the  most  distinguished 
leader  of  the  Unitarians,  writes  of  the  Unitarian  ministers  : 
il  Their  Unitarianism  is  of  a  very  different  kind  from  that  of  Mr. 
Belsham.  ...  A  majority  of  our  brethren  believe  that  Jesus 
Christ  is  more  than  man ;  that  he  existed  before  the  world ;  that 
he  literally  came  from  heaven  to  save  our  race,”  etc.  Channing 
adds  that  another  class,  while  they  reject  the  Trinity  of  persons, 
profess  no  definite  opinion  on  the  subject,  and  that  another  class 
still,  few  in  number,  “  believe  the  simple  humanity  of  Christ.”  In 
another  letter  (November,  1815),  he  says  that  the  prevalent  senti¬ 
ments  of  the  “  Liberal  Christians  ”  substantially  agree  with  the  views 
of  Dr.  Samuel  Clarke  and  Worcester.  A  sermon  of  Channing  in 
Baltimore,  in  1819,  was  the  signal  for  the  opening  of  a  new  stage 
in  the  doctrinal  warfare.  In  this  sermon  the  distinctive  points  of 
Calvinism  were  assaulted  without  reserve.  It  occasioned  the 
publication  of  Letters  in  answer  by  Professor  Moses  Stuart  of 
Andover,  the  best  equipped  of  the  orthodox  scholars  in  New 
England.  Since  Hopkins,  the  doctrine  of  the  eternal  generation  of 
the  Son  had  been  given  up  for  the  most  part  in  this  region. 
Stuart’s  conception  of  the  Trinity  is  that  of  three  eternal,  imma¬ 
nent  “  distinctions  ”  in  the  Deity,  not  admitting  of  precise  defini¬ 
tion,  and  of  the  true  and  proper  divinity  of  the  Son  and  of  the 
Spirit.  The  ablest  and  most  accurate  scholar  on  the  Unitarian 
side  was  Professor  Andrews  Norton  whose  Statement  of  Reasons 
for  not  Believing  the  Doctrmes  of  Trinitarians ,  etc.,  appeared  in 
1833.  There  being  no  central  authority  among  Congregation- 
alists,  a  formal  ecclesiastical  rupture  could  not  take  place.  But 
practically  a  division  was  effected,  by  the  ministers  of  the  respec- 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


421 


tive  parties  ceasing  to  exchange  ministerial  services  with  one 
another,  or  to  unite  in  clerical  associations,  and  by  churches  no 
longer  coming  together  in  advisory  Councils. 

Channing  is  the  most  eminent  representative  of  the  Unitarian 
movement  in  this  country.  It  is  true  that  others  among  the 
gifted  men  who  have  been  conspicuous  in  that  school  have 
equalled  or  surpassed  him  in  some  of  the  titles  to  distinction. 
There  have  been  in  their  number  more  eloquent  preachers.  The 
younger  Buckminster  was  one,  of  whom  Edward  Everett  declared 
that  he  had  the  most  melodious  voice  “  that  ever  passed  the  lips 
of  man  ;  ”  1  of  whom,  also,  one  of  the  ablest  of  the  early  Unitarian 
preachers,  who  afterwards  rendered  most  honorable  service  in 
literature  and  in  public  life  —  John  Gorham  Palfrey — has  said 
that  his  pulpit  utterances  approached  near  “  to  what  we  imagine 
of  a  prophet’s  or  an  angel’s  inspiration.”  2  In  the  graces  of  style 
and  delivery,  according  to  the  taste  of  that  time,  Channing  was 
outdone  by  the  youthful  Everett  himself,  in  the  short  time  in 
which  the  latter  served  as  the  successor  of  Buckminster  in  the 
Brattle  Street  Church.  No  doubt,  Channing’s  manner  was  marked 
by  a  glow  of  chastened  earnestness,  indicating  deep  emotions 
held  under  restraint,  and  thus  had  a  peculiar  fascination  of  its 
own.  Sometimes,  though  rarely,  he  broke  out  in  a  more  impas¬ 
sioned  strain.  Of  a  sermon  preached  by  him  in  New  York,  in 
1826,  an  admiring  listener  writes  :  “The  man  was  full  of  fire,  and 
his  body  seemed,  under  some  of  his  tremendous  sentences,  to 
expand  into  that  of  a  giant ;  ...  his  face  was,  if  anything,  more 
meaning  than  his  words.”3 

If  there  were  others  who  had  more  of  the  qualifications  con¬ 
sidered  to  be  characteristic  of  the  clerical  orator  than  were  pos¬ 
sessed  by  Channing,  it  is  also  the  fact  that,  as  a  theological 
scholar,  he  was  much  surpassed  by  Andrews  Norton;  in  famil¬ 
iarity  with  philosophical  and  general  literature,  by  George  Ripley ; 
and  in  a  certain  cautious  accuracy  and  weight  of  reasoning  in 
moral  science,  by  James  Walker.  Nor  in  devoutness  of  spirit 
does  he  excel  the  younger  Henry  Ware  and  Ephraim  Peabody. 
Those  who  knew  Channing  remarked  in  him  something  delicate, 
fastidious,  patrician,  notwithstanding  his  humane  sympathy ;  and 
hence  in  the  aptitude  to  reach  directly  the  common  mind  he  was 

1  Memoirs  of  the  Buckminsters,  p.  396.  2  Ibid.  p.  481. 

3  Life  of  Henry  Ware ,  fr.,  Vol.  I.  p.  219. 


422 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


outstripped  by  Theodore  Parker,  whose  robust  energy  and  racy 
dialect  better  fitted  him  for  contact  with  the  multitude.  But 
Channing  unites  in  himself  various  characteristics  which  conspire 
to  give  him  preeminence.  A  clear  mind,  not  wanting  in  imagi¬ 
native  warmth,  a  transparent,  natural  style,  neither  slovenly  nor 
overwrought,  the  sympathies  and  attainments  of  a  man  of  letters, 
even  though  he  was  not  widely  read  —  are  manifest  in  his  writ¬ 
ings.  Superadded  to  these  qualities,  there  was  a  sanctity  of  spirit 
which  was  felt  by  those  who  heard  him  in  the  pulpit,  or  met  him 
even  casually  in  conversation.  It  was  not  simply  that  he  was  sin¬ 
cere,  and  that  he  spoke  in  the  accents  of  conviction.  It  was  not 
simply  that  he  was  above  the  influence  of  personal  motives,  like 
the  love  of  praise  and  the  dread  of  censure,  and  that  he  had  a 
courage  corresponding  to  his  convictions.  This  necessary  attri¬ 
bute  in  a  popular  leader  he  exemplified  in  an  inspiriting  letter 
to  Henry  Ware,  Jr.,  when  the  latter  was  desponding  over  the 
poor  outlook  for  their  cause  in  New  York,  and  in  other  more 
serious  emergencies.1  Channing’s  eminence  is  chiefly  due,  first, 
to  the  elevated  fervor  which  inspired  his  teaching,  and  which  was 
of  inestimable  advantage  in  a  movement  in  which  the  intellectual 
factor  stood  in  so  high  a  ratio  to  the  religious ;  and,  secondly,  to 
the  circumstance  that  he  embodied  in  himself  so  fully  the  ethical 
and  philanthropic  impulse  which  principally  constituted  the  posi¬ 
tive  living  force  of  the  Unitarian  cause.  Following  out  the 
humanitarian  tendency,  he  acquired,  at  home  and  abroad,  a  high 
and,  in  the  main,  a  deserved  fame  as  the  champion  of  justice 
in  opposition  to  slavery  and  other  social  evils. 

It  is  remarkable  that  the  Unitarian  movement  was  confined 
chiefly  to  Eastern  New  England,  and  did  not  extend  into  Western 
Massachusetts  and  Connecticut.  In  Connecticut  there  were  never 
more  than  two  or  three  Unitarian  churches,  and  these  in  obscure 
towns.  One  ground  of  this  fact  is,  that  in  that  State  the  Episco¬ 
pal  Church  struck  a  deeper  root  than  in  Massachusetts.  For  all 
who  might  dislike  the  style  of  preaching  and  the  peculiar  measures 

which  characterize  what  is  called  “  revivalism,”  with  its  exciting 

—  ■> 

appeals  and  its  prying  interrogation  of  individuals  as  to  their 
religious  experience,  and  for  all  who  recoiled  from  rigorous  meta¬ 
physical  definitions  of  religious  truth,  the  door  of  the  Episcopal 
Church  in  Connecticut  stood  open.  Here  was  a  church  with  an 

1  Life  of  Henry  Ware,  Jr.,  Vol.  I.  p.  132. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


423 


evangelical  creed  and  evangelical  worship,  where  those  who  were 
disaffected  with  Puritan  ways,  old  or  new,  could  find  a  quiet  har¬ 
bor.  Another  reason  for  the  difference  of  which  I  speak  lay  in 
the  circumstances  which  gave  to  the  Edwardeans  a  complete 
ascendancy  in  Connecticut.  The  old  Arminianism  was  not  so 
strong  or  so  strongly  intrenched  there  as  in  Eastern  Massachu¬ 
setts.  The  Calvinists  of  the  older  school,  from  their  greater  fear 
of  Arminian  doctrine,  were  inclined  to  coalesce  with  the  fol¬ 
lowers  of  Edwards,  as  is  seen  in  the  case  of  President  Clap,  of 
Yale  College  (1739-66).  President  Stiles,  of  the  same  college 
(r  777-95),  was  more  of  a  latitudinarian  in  his  opinions  and  affil¬ 
iations  ;  he  looked  back  on  the  Revival  “  as  the  late  period  of 
enthusiasm.”  But  he  was  succeeded  by  Dwight,  whose  acces¬ 
sion  to  the  presidency  secured  the  complete  ascendancy  of  the 
school  of  Edwards.  The  moderation  of  Dwight  in  his  theological 
statements,  his  strenuous  opposition  to  Hopkinsian  extravagances, 
and,  more  than  all,  his  commanding  influence  as  a  preacher  and 
an  instructor  of  theological  students,  contributed  much  towards 
keeping  the  Congregational  churches  and  ministers  in  the  old 
path.  This  result,  however,  might  not  have  occurred  had  there 
been  that  deep  and  varied  preparation  for  a  doctrinal  revolution 
which  had  been  going  forward  in  Boston  and  its  neighborhood 
through  the  greater  part  of  the  eighteenth  century. 

If  we  would  understand  the  Unitarian  schism,  we  must  take 
into  account  the  fact  that  there  were  not  only  two  interpretations 
of  the  Bible  which  came  into  collision,  but  that  there  were,  at  the 
same  time,  two  types  of  culture.  Unitarianism,  as  it  has  appeared 
in  history,  has  been  conjoined  with  no  single  form  of  church  pol¬ 
ity.  It  has  sprung  up  in  the  midst  of  Anglican  Episcopacy.  It 
has  sprung  up  at  Geneva,  in  connection  with  Presbyterianism,  and 
close  by  Calvin’s  grave.  But  it  has  frequently  gone  hand  in  hand 
with  literary  criticism  and  belles-lettres  cultivation.  This  was  the 
case  in  the  Italian  Unitarianism  of  the  sixteenth  century,  which 
arose  out  of  the  Renaissance  culture,  and  in  the  Unitarianism 
that  spread  so  widely  among  the  gentry  of  Poland.  The  same 
was  conspicuously  true  of  the  Unitarian  party  in  New  England. 
There  grew  up  about  Boston  and  Cambridge  a  method  of  Biblical 
criticism  which  was  nourished  by  the  study  of  Griesbach  and  of 
Arminian  scholars  of  an  earlier  date.  In  connection  with  these 
studies  there  was  a  new  and  wider  range  of  literary  activity,  and 


424 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


an  altered  style  and  standard  of  literary  and  aesthetic  training. 
Dwight  and  the  elder  Buckminster  had  been  fellow-students  and 
tutors  together  at  Yale  College  in  the  latter  part  of  the  last  cen¬ 
tury.  They  broke  loose  from  the  metaphysical  style  of  discussion 
which  had  been  in  vogue  before  in  the  pulpit,  and  fostered  the 
reading  of  the  contemporary  English  classics.  But  they  still  ex¬ 
hibit  a  stiff  and  somewhat  tumid  quality  of  style.  In  the  sermons 
of  the  younger  Buckminster  we  find  that  these  faults  have  been 
outgrown ;  although  even  he  expresses  himself  with  a  certain  for¬ 
mality,  and  with  an  avoidance  of  the  vocabulary  of  common  life. 
From  these  remaining  fetters  Channing  escaped,  thereby  evincing 
the  continued  advance  of  literary  taste.  He  speaks  somewhere 
of  the  habit  that  had  prevailed  of  shunning  familiar  words  as 
if  they  had  been  soiled  by  common  use.  In  his  own  style  there 
is  nothing  artificial  and  nothing  slovenly.  As  the  Unitarian  move¬ 
ment  went  forward  to  later  stages,  the  changes  in  the  type  of 
literary  culture  became  very  decided  and  very  influential.  But 
at  the  outset,  at  the  epoch  when  Channing  began  his  career,  one 
feels,  in  looking  at  the  writers  on  the  Unitarian  side,  that  they 
have  passed  beyond  the  point  of  bending  entranced  over  the 
pages  of  Sir  Charles  Grandison,  and  are  likely  soon  to  become 
insensible  to  the  attractions  of  Miss  Hannah  More.  Theodore 
Parker  says  of  Unitarianism  :  “  The  protest  began  among  a  class 
of  cultivated  men  in  the  most  cultivated  part  of  America ;  with 
men  who  had  not  the  religious  element  developed  in  proportion 
to  the  intellectual  or  the  aesthetic  element.”  1  Of  this  there  can 
be  no  doubt  —  that,  along  with  a  real  interest  in  theology  and 
religion,  there  was  a  very  decided  taste  and  aptitude  for  literary 
pursuits.  Among  those  who  left  the  Unitarian  pulpit  to  devote 
themselves  to  literature  or  politics  are  Sparks,  Everett,  Ban¬ 
croft,  Emerson,  Ripley,  Palfrey,  Upham.  If  an  equal  number  of 
leading  minds  had  withdrawn  themselves  from  the  pulpit  in  the 
Methodist  body  —  supposing  that,  in  its  early  days,  it  had  pos¬ 
sessed  so  many  able  and  learned  men  —  or  from  any  other 
religious  body  not  more  numerous  than  the  Unitarians  were,  the 
fact  would  be  considered  very  remarkable.  This  matter  is  referred 
to  merely  as  an  indication  of  the  general  change  of  atmosphere,  so 
to  speak,  in  the  places  where  Unitarianism  appeared.  The  old 
Puritan  training,  with  its  altogether  predominant  devotion  to 

1  Weiss’s  Life  of  Parker ,  Vol.  I.  p.  270. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


425 


religious  and  theological  writers,  its  austere  jealousy  of  imagina¬ 
tive  literature,  and  its  rigid  metaphysical  habit,  was  fast  giving- 
way  to  a  different  and  more  diversified  type  of  culture.  In  the 
circle  of  students  to  which  Channing  belonged  at  Cambridge, 
there  was  a  newly  awakened  zeal  in  the  study  of  Shakespeare. 

Another  powerful  agency,  after  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  had  operated  to  turn  the  thoughts  of  men  in  that  region 
away  from  metaphysics  and  abstract  inquiries  in  theology  into 
another  channel.  This  was  the  discussion  of  political  questions, 
which  formed  the  prelude  to  the  American  Revolution,  and  called 
off  many  vigorous  minds  from  theological  controversy  to  another 
arena.  These  discussions  were  afterwards  carried  forward  with 
absorbing  interest  during  the  administration  of  our  first  presidents, 
when  the  French  Revolution  and  the  stirring  events  on  the  conti¬ 
nent  of  Europe  to  which  it  gave  rise  brought  forward  questions  of 
the  highest  moment  relating  to  government  and  society.  Human 
rights  and  the  well-being  of  mankind  were  topics  of  which  Chan¬ 
ning  had  heard  from  his  childhood. 

Channing  was  in  contact  from  early  life  on  the  one  hand  with 
the  strong  religious  influence  which  was  still  felt  in  Puritan  New 
England,  and,  on  the  other,  with  laudations  of  mental  freedom 
and  with  the  growing  tendencies  to  liberal  or  latitudinarian  thought 
in  matters  of  belief.  With  his  sensitive,  conscientious  spirit  and 
his  passion  for  liberty",  he  responded  to  both  these  influences. 
There  were  several  critical  epochs  in  his  mental  history.  At  New 
London,  where  he  was  at  school  in  his  boyhood  before  entering 
college,  he  received  during  a  revival  deep  and  lasting  impressions, 
and,  as  his  biographer  tells  us,  dated  his  religious  life  from  that 
time.1  In  college  he  read  with  delight  Ferguson’s  work  on  “Civil 
Society.”  The  capacities  and  the  destiny  of  mankind,  human 
nature  and  human  progress,  warmly  interested  his  attention. 
Hutcheson  especially,  the  Scottish  writer  on  “  Morals,”  whose  glow¬ 
ing  pictures  of  the  beauty  of  universal  benevolence  produced  a 
strong  effect  on  many  other  New  Englanders,  kindled  Channing’s 
enthusiasm  to  a  flame.  On  one  occasion,  when  only  fifteen,  walk¬ 
ing  under  the  trees  with  his  book  in  hand,  these  ideas  of  his  favor¬ 
ite  author,  which  suggested  to  him  the  possibility  of  an  endless 
progress  and  the  glory  of  disinterested  virtue,  awakened  a  rapture 
that  stamped  the  place  and  the  hour  indelibly  upon  his  memory. 

1  Memoirs  of  Channing  (3  Vols.  1848),  Vol.  I.  p.  43. 


426 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


But  he  passed  through  a  sentimental  period  of  considerable  dura¬ 
tion.  He  gave  himself  up  to  idle  musings,  to  delicious  or  gloomy 
reveries.  He  would  stand  upon  the  beach  at  Newport,  and,  in 
a  high  Byronic  mood,  long  to  rush  to  the  embrace  of  the  waters, 
whose  tumultuous  heavings  harmonized  with  the  mood  of  his  own 
spirit.  He  had  read  the  Stoics,  and  fancied  himself  akin  to  them. 
He  wept  over  Goldsmith  and  over  a  sonnet  of  Southey,  and  even 
over  the  poems  of  Rogers.  It  is  hard  to  believe  that  these  maud¬ 
lin  tempers  could  ever  have  belonged  to  a  man  of  Channing’s  ster¬ 
ling  sincerity.  He  afterwards  deplored  them,  and  was  ashamed 
of  them.  After  graduating,  while  he  was  teaching  at  Richmond, 
Virginia,  his  more  sensible  brother  writes  to  him:  “You  know 
nothing  of  yourself.  You  talk  of  your  apathy  and  stoicism,  when 
you  are  the  baby  of  your  emotions,  and  dandled  by  them  without 
any  chance  of  being  weaned.”1  He  was  weaned,  however.  At 
Richmond  a  revolution  took  place  in  his  inward  life.  “  I  was 
blind,”  he  says,  “to  the  goodness  of  God,  and  blind  to  the  love 
of  my  Redeemer.  Now  I  behold  with  shame  and  confusion  the 
depravity  and  rottenness  of  my  heart.  ...  I  have  now  solemnly 
given  myself  up  to  God.  ...  I  love  mankind  because  they 
are  the  children  of  God.”  This  act  of  self-consecration  put  an 
end  to  aimless  sentiment,  and  morbid  revery,  and  self-brooding. 
Thenceforward  it  should  be  his  undivided  purpose  to  serve  God 
and  mankind,  oblivious  of  self.  Of  this  moral  crisis  in  Channing’s 
course  we  might  be  glad  to  have  more  definite  knowledge.  It 
does  not  appear  that  perplexities  of  doctrine  or  metaphysical 
problems,  such  as  we  might  look  for  in  a  New  Englander  sprung 
from  the  Puritan  stock,  disturbed  his  thoughts  in  the  least  at  that 
critical  time.  In  truth,  at  all  times  moral  and  spiritual  relations 
were  uppermost  in  his  mind.  His  strongest  objection  to  the  doc¬ 
trine  of  the  Trinity  is  the  practical  perplexities  which  he  supposed 
it  to  occasion  in  worship ;  his  objections  to  Calvinism  are  not  so 
much  logical,  but  lie  principally  in  what  he  terms  the  moral  argu¬ 
ment  against  it.  He  was  never  fond  of  Priestley.  In  this  case,  to 
be  sure,  the  materialistic  and  necessarian  theories  of  this  author 
were  repugnant  to  his  convictions.  Much  as  he  honored  Locke 
as  a  man,  and  frequently  as  he  refers  to  him  as  an  example  of 
Anti-Trinitarian  belief  in  conjunction  with  high  intellectual  endow¬ 
ments,  Locke’s  philosophical  tenets  were  not  congenial  to  him. 

1  Memoirs,  Vol.  I.  p.  108. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


427 


He  was  delivered  from  them  by  his  favorite  writer,  Price,  whose 
dissertations  won  him  over  to  the  intuitive  school,  and  who  con¬ 
tributed  essentially  to  the  formation  of  his  philosophical  and 
theological  opinions.  This  author  is  really  a  lucid  as  well  as  an 
animated  expositor  of  the  spiritual,  in  opposition  to  the  empiri¬ 
cal,  philosophy.  He  vindicates  the  reality  of  a  priori  truth  in 
the  spirit  of  Cudworth.  The  genial  tone  of  Price  and  his  Anti- 
Trinitarian  opinions  also  recommended  him  to  Channing’s  favor. 

There  is  one  link  of  connection  between  Channing  and  the 
earlier  New  England  theologians.  This  is  through  Hopkins,  who 
was  a  minister  at  Newport  in  the  youth  of  Channing,  and  had  not 
a  little  personal  intercourse  with  him.  A  notice  of  his  relation 
with  Hopkins  brings  us  naturally  to  one  of  the  cardinal  features  of 
Channing’s  religious  system.  He  says  :  “  I  was  attached  to  Dr. 
Hopkins  chiefly  by  his  theory  of  disinterestedness.  I  had  studied 
with  great  delight  during  my  college  life  the  philosophy  of  Hutche¬ 
son  and  the  stoical  morality,  and  these  had  prepared  me  for  the 
noble,  self-sacrificing  doctrines  of  Dr.  Hopkins.”  1  The  theory  of 
virtue  to  which  Channing  alludes  was  unfolded  in  its  essential 
points  by  Jonathan  Edwards.  Holiness,  goodness,  virtue  —  moral 
excellence,  by  whatever  name  it  may  be  called  —  consists  in  Love. 
It  is  love  towards  the  universal  society  of  intelligent  beings,  of 
which  God  is  the  head.  This  love  is  impartial;  it  goes  out  to 
every  being,  and  gives  to  each  his  due  portion.  God,  the  infinite 
One,  is  entitled  to  love  without  limit.  Every  one  who  is  of  the 
same  order  of  being  as  myself  I  am  to  love  equally  with  myself. 
Love  is  disinterested.  I  am  to  love  myself  not  as  my  self,  but 
only  as  one  member  of  this  universal  society  —  a  member  whose 
welfare  is  a  proper  object  of  pursuit,  not  less  and  not  more  than 
is  the  welfare  of  any  other  human  being,  every  other  one  being 
of  equal  worth  or  value.  Self  is  merged  in  the  sum  total  of  being, 
as  a  drop  in  the  ocean.  It  is  obvious  that  Love,  as  thus  defined, 
has  two  directions  :  one  upward  to  God,  and  the  other  outward 
towards  our  fellow- men.  Not  that  piety  and  philanthropy,  in  their 
true  and  perfect  form,  are  really  separable  from  one  another ;  yet 
it  is  quite  possible  for  the  feelings  of  adoration,  devotion,  submis¬ 
sion,  and  the  whole  religious  side  of  love  to  engross  as  it  were  the 
mind,  so  that  the  interests  of  man  and  of  human  life  in  this  mun¬ 
dane  sphere,  except  so  far  as  man  is  to  be  prevented  from  inflict- 

1  Memoirs ,  Vol.  I.  p.  137. 


428 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


ing  dishonor  on  God  and  ruin  upon  himself  by  that  means,  should 
be  left  in  the  background.  God  is  to  be  exalted  and  glorified  — 
this  is  the  main  thought.  Such  was  the  tendency  of  Calvinism ; 
of  Calvinism  in  New  England  as  elsewhere.  All  such  statements 
are,  indeed,  subject  to  much  qualification.  Calvinists  demanded 
righteousness  of  conduct.  Channing  was  taught  by  Hopkins  to 
hate  slavery.  This  intrepid  old  man  lifted  his  voice  against 
slavery  and  the  slave-trade  in  Newport,  when  that  town  was  a 
principal  mart  of  this  iniquitous  traffic.  But,  speaking  generally, 
it  was  the  first  and  great  commandment,  and  the  feelings  directly 
involved  in  it,  that  mainly  absorbed  the  attention.  It  was  not  ab¬ 
solutely  forgotten  that  the  second  commandment  is  “  like  unto  it.” 
The  duties  of  man  to  his  neighbor  were  placed  on  the  ground  of 
religious  obligation.  But  an  active,  warm-hearted,  many-sided 
philanthropy,  which  looks  after  the  temporal  as  well  as  the  eternal 
interests  of  mankind,  and  goes  Out  with  tender  sympathy  to  min¬ 
ister  to  suffering  of  every  kind ;  which  raises  hospitals,  builds 
comfortable  habitations  for  the  honest  poor,  visits  those  who  are 
sick  and  in  prison,  cherishes  a  conception  of  education  as  com¬ 
prehensive  as  the  faculties  of  the  mind  —  such  a  spirit  of  philan¬ 
thropy  was  not  characteristic  of  the  religion  of  New  England,  and 
Channing  and  Unitarianism  have  done  much  to  promote  it.  The 
disinterested  benevolence  of  Edwards  and  Hopkins  now  turned 
from  lofty  and  sometimes  almost  ecstatic  meditations  upon  the 
sovereignty  and  perfection  of  God,  and  the  iteration  of  the  solemn 
demand  to  submit  to  His  authority  and  to  live  to  His  glory,  to  the 
man-ward  side  of  this  principle.  Edwards  was  transported  by 
visions  of  the  sweetness  of  Christ  and  of  the  sublime  attributes 
of  God ;  Channing,  by  the  exalted  nature  and  infinite  possibilities 
of  man. 

The  dignity  of  human  nature ,  then,  was  a  fundamental  article 
in  Channing’s  creed.  In  every  human  being  there  is  the  germ  of 
an  unbounded  progress.  An  unspeakable  value  belongs  to  him. 
His  nature  is  not  to  be  vilified.  A  wrong  done  to  him  is  like 
violence  offered  to  an  angel. 

This  idea  of  the  dignity  of  man  is  a  great  Christian  truth.  No 
one  can  doubt  that  it  was  a  living  conviction  in  Channing’s  mind. 
It  imparted  to  him  that  “  enthusiasm  of  humanity  ”  which  became 
the  passion  of  his  soul.  He  was  not  equally  impressed  by  another 
side  to  the  picture.  “  It  is  dangerous,”  says  Pascal,  “  to  make  man 


MODERN  THEOLOGY  429 

see  how  he  is  on  a  level  with  the  brutes,  without  showing  him  his 
greatness.  It  is  dangerous,  again,  to  make  him  see  his  greatness 
without  seeing  his  baseness.  .  .  .  Let  man  estimate  himself  at 
his  real  value.  Let  him  love  himself,  if  he  has  in  him  a  nature 
capable  of  good ;  but  let  him  not  love  on  this  account  the  vile¬ 
nesses  that  belongs  to  it.  Let  him  despise  himself,  because  this 
capacity  is  waste ;  but  let  him  not  on  this  account  despise  this 
natural  capacity.  Let  him  hate  himself ;  let  him  love  himself.” 
Channing  considered  the  Church  in  all  past  ages  to  have  been  im¬ 
mersed  in  error  on  religious  themes  of  capital  importance.  This 
was  his  judgment  respecting  the  churches  of  the  Reformation,  as 
well  as  the  church  of  the  Middle  Ages.  On  these  topics,  which 
stand  in  the  forefront  of  Christian  theology,  he  frankly  and  boldly, 
but  always  without  bitterness  or  malignity,  declared  that  the  lead¬ 
ing  Reformers  were  the  victims  of  superstition.  The  movement  of 
which  he  was  an  advocate  was  represented  as  a  new  instauration 
of  Christianity.  The  light  which  had  been  obscured  by  dismal 
clouds  had  at  last  broken  forth  in  its  full  illuminating  power.  He 
openly,  though  without  the  least  arrogance,  claims  the  character 
of  an  innovator  and  a  dissentient. 

The  orthodox  critics  of  Channing  miss  in  him  a  strong  grasp  of 
sin  as  a  principle,  revealing  itself  in  multiform  expressions  or  phe¬ 
nomena,  entering  into  numberless  phases  of  manifestation,  exer¬ 
cising  sway  in  mankind,  and  holding  fast  the  will  in  a  kind  of 
bondage.  The  diversified  forms  of  selfish  and  unrighteous  action 
are  not  habitually  traced  back  by  him  to  the  fons  et  origo  malorum 
—  the  mysterious  alienation  of  men  from  the  fellowship  of  God. 
The  moral  malady  is  not  explored  to  its  sources ;  and  hence  the 
tendency  is  to  treat  it  with  palliatives.  He  is  too  much  inclined 
to  rely  on  education  to  do  the  work  of  regeneration.  He  speaks 
of  customary  accusations  of  sin  brought  against  mankind  as  ex¬ 
aggerated.  In  dealing  with  the  doctrine  of  Man,  Channing  was 
captivated  by  an  ideal.  He  saw  what  man  might  be,  what  man 
ought  to  be  ;  but  not  so  clearly  what  man  really  is. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  the  real  point  of  controversy  be¬ 
tween  the  two  parties  in  New  England  was  the  doctrine  of  Sin 
and  the  correlated  doctrine  of  Conversion.  The  field  of  debate 
was  Anthropology.  The  New  England  mind  was  not  speculative  ; 
and  Jonathan  Edwards  was  almost  the  only  one  of  our  divines 
who  showed  an  extraordinary  talent  or  relish  for  speculative 


430 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


divinity.  It  was  the  practical  side  of  theology,  sin  and  regenera¬ 
tion  in  their  relation  to  the  conditions  of  human  responsibility, 
that  interested  his  successors.  They  wanted  to  make  Calvinism 
self-consistent,  and  to  parry  objections  that  arose  in  the  minds 
of  their  own  hearers,  or  were  disseminated  by  the  English  Armin- 
ian  writers.  It  is  remarkable,  although  the  Trinity  and  the  person 
of  Christ  were  nominally  the  subject  of  contention  in  the  Uni¬ 
tarian  controversy,  how  little  of  importance  was  contributed  on 
either  side  to  the  elucidation  of  these  topics.  Even  Norton  and 
Stuart,  the  best- equipped  disputants,  say  little  that  had  not  been 
said  before. 

The  next  of  the  leading  ideas  of  Channing  was  that  of  the 
Fatherhood  of  God.  Against  the  Calvinistic  assertion  of  the 
sovereignty  of  God,  he  was  never  tired  of  proclaiming  God’s 
paternal  character.  He  meant  and  professed  to  follow  the  Script¬ 
ures  ;  but  he  dwelt  on  the  paternal  relation  of  God  to  mankind, 
and  insisted  less  on  the  fact  that  a  relation  which  is  practically 
subverted  by  their  disloyalty  can  be  restored  only  by  their  return 
to  filial  allegiance.  The  severe  side,  the  side  of  judgment  and 
penalty,  which  is  adapted  to  produce  fear,  had  been  held  up  to 
view,  sometimes  disproportionately.  Both  Edwards  and  Hopkins 
had  stated  in  the  baldest  language  that  the  righteous  in  heaven 
would  derive  satisfaction  from  contemplating  the  torments  of  the 
lost.  This  conclusion  they  supposed  to  follow  by  an  irresistible 
logic  from  the  justice  of  the  appointed  penalty  —  as  if  a  due 
,  sympathy  with  the  righteous  administration  of  law  requires  that 
/  we  should  attend  and  enjoy  public  executions.  In  the  powerful 
reaction  against  representations  of  this  character,  against  the 
corresponding  portraiture  of  God,  against  sensuous  pictures  of 
retributive  torment,  and  the  predominant  appeals  to  fear,  the 
Unitarians  tended  to  divest  religion  of  those  elements  which 
awaken  dread  in  the  guilty.  Channing,  when  he  was  a  boy, 
not  only  never  killed  a  bird,  and  avoided  crushing  an  insect,  but 
he  let  rats  out  of  a  trap  to  save  them  from  being  drowned.1 

What  was  Channing’s  conception  of  Christ  ?  Christ  was  a  pre¬ 
existent  rational  creature,  an  angel  or  spirit  of  some  sort,  who 
had  entered  into  a  human  body.  He  was  not  even  a  man  except 
so  far  as  His  corporeal  part  is  concerned,  but  was  a  creature  from 
some  upper  sphere.  The  particular  conception  which  Channing 

1  Memoirs ,  Vol.  I.  p.  40. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


431 


set  up  in  the  room  of  the  church  doctrine  of  the  Incarnation  is 
one  of  the  crudest  notions  which  the  history  of  speculation  on 
this  subject  has  ever  presented.  The  transitional  character  of 
Channing’s  type  of  theology  is  strikingly  indicated  in  this  indefi¬ 
nite,  unphilosophical  sort  of  Arianism,  to  which  it  would  seem 
that  he  adhered  to  the  end. 

Channing  did  not  absolutely  renounce  the  orthodox  opinion. 
Having  referred  to  the  opposite  view,  he  says  :  “  Many  of  us  are 
dissatisfied  with  this  explanation,  and  think  that  the  Scriptures 
ascribe  the  remission  of  sins  to  Christ’s  death,  with  an  emphasis 
so  peculiar  that  we  ought  to  consider  this  event  as  having  a 
special  influence  in  removing  punishment,  though  the  Scriptures 
may  not  reveal  the  way  in  which  it  contributes  to  this  end.”  But, 
in  keeping  with  his  transitional  position,  he  lays  no  stress  on  this 
truth.  On  the  contrary,  he  is  unsparing,  though  never  inten¬ 
tionally  unfair  or  extravagant,  in  his  denunciation  of  the  current 
expressions  in  which  it  is  set  forth.  Either  from  a  want  of  famil¬ 
iarity  with  the  history  of  doctrine,  or  from  not  being  addicted  to 
patient  intellectual  analysis,  he  is  content  with  giving  expression 
to  his  revolted  feeling.  He  does  not  stop  to  inquire  whether  a 
profound  truth  may  not  be  contained  in  a  statement  which,  if 
literally  taken,  is  obnoxious.  Nor  does  he  attempt  to  separate  a 
particular  representation  of  some  school  in  theology  from  the 
underlying  truth  which  theology,  with  varying  degrees  of  success, 
has  been  endeavoring  to  formulate. 

x\part  from  his  criticism  of  adverse  views,  Channing’s  positive 
idea  is  that  Christ  does  His  work  of  reclaiming  men  from  sin  by 
teaching  truth,  which  is  recommended  by  His  spotless  character 
and  by  His  death,  and  confirmed  as  having  authority  by  His  mir¬ 
acles,  especially  His  resurrection  from  the  dead.  Of  the  teaching 
of  Christ,  especially  of  His  ethical  teaching,  and  of  the  unapproach¬ 
able  beauty  and  perfection  of  His  character,  it  is  well  known  that 
Channing  has  written  much  that  is  admirable.  When  we  inquire 
specifically  what  the  capital  points  of  that  doctrine  are  which 
Christ  was  sent  into  the  world  to  announce,  we  find  them  to  be 
the  doctrine  of  God  the  Father,  and  of  the  immortality  of  the 
soul.  This  last  truth  is  brought  home  to  men’s  belief  by  the  res¬ 
urrection  of  Jesus.  These  two  truths  are  singled  out  by  Channing, 
in  writing  on  Christian  Evidences,  as  most  important  points  of 
the  Saviour’s  teaching.  The  paternal  character  of  God  is  de- 


432 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


dared  and  evinced,  and  thereby  superstitions  and  gloomy  fears 
growing  out  of  them  are  dispelled ;  and  the  soul’s  destiny  to  sur¬ 
vive  death  is  vividly  exhibited,  and  is  also  proved,  by  the  raising 
of  Jesus  from  the  dead.  The  Christian  revelation  is  reduced  in 
its  contents  substantially  to  these  two  articles  of  faith. 

It  might  have  been  predicted,  from  the  analogies  of  experience, 
that  the  Liberal  movement  would  not  stop  with  the  abandonment 
of  the  doctrines  of  the  Incarnation  and  Atonement,  and  with  the 
resolution  of  Christianity  into  the  inculcation  of  an  elevated  mon¬ 
otheism,  coupled  with  the  truth  of  immortality,  and  verified  by 
miracles.1  A  ferment  like  that  which  Channing  and  his  associates 
excited  could  not  stop  where  it  began.  In  such  an  atmosphere 
changes  occur  fast.  The  revolution  of  thought,  like  political  rev¬ 
olutions,  could  not  halt  where  its  authors  might  wish  it  to  stop, 
but  must  move  on  to  more  advanced  stages. 

The  first  remarkable  phenomenon  was  the  development  of  the 
Intuitional  Theory,  if  so  it  may  be  styled.  Schleiermacher,  and 
the  French  and  German  philosophers,  were  read  by  some.  The 
thoughts  of  these  writers  fell  into  a  genial  soil.  Religious  truth, 
which  the  older  Unitarians,  after  the  manner  of  Locke  and  Paley, 
received  on  the  ground  of  miraculous  proof,  was  now  affirmed  to 
be  evident  to  the  soul  independently  of  that  species  of  evidence, 
which  was  pronounced  to  be  of  secondary  value.  This  view  of 
things  involved  a  carrying  of  mental  freedom  further  than  had 
been  anticipated.  It  was  supposed  to  threaten  the  basis  of  super¬ 
naturalism.  It  awakened  alarm.  Professor  Norton,  learned  in 
New  Testament  criticism  and  in  the  early  patristic  literature,  in  an 
address  to  the  Cambridge  Divinity  School,  in  1839,  uttered  a 
warning  against  the  new  doctrine  of  a  light  within  the  soul,  as  the 
latest  form  of  infidelity.  Spinoza,  Schleiermacher,  De  Wette,  and 
kindred  spirits,  were  put  under  the  ban,  and  their  followers  excom- 

1  Among  the  works  which  throw  light  on  the  history  of  Unitarianism  in 
New  England,  in  its  successive  phases,  are  the  Memoirs  of  Dr.  Buckminster 
and  of  J.  S.  Buckminster ,  Channing1  s  Memoirs  (by  W.  H.  Channing),  the 
Life  of  Dr.  Gannett  (by  his  son),  the  Biographies  of  Parker  (by  Weiss  and  by 
Frothingham),  Frothingham’s  Transcendentalism,  and  the  Memoir  of  Mar¬ 
garet  Fuller  :  also,  History  of  the  Unitarians  in  the  U.S.  (by  J.  Id.  Allen), 
articles  on  Unitarianism  and  on  Channing  (by  J.  W.  Chadwick)  in  John¬ 
son’s  Encyclopcedia,  (new  ed.).  See,  also,  a  learned  article  on  the  History  and 
Literature  of  the  Unitarian  Controversy  (by  E.  Id.  Gillett),  Historical  Maga¬ 
zine,  2d  series,  April,  1871. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


433 


municated  with  bell  and  candle.  His  position  was  that  “no  proof 
of  the  divine  commission  of  Christ  could  be  afforded  save  through 
miraculous  displays- of  God’s  power.”  “No  rational  man,”  he 
said,  “  can  suppose  that  God  has  miraculously  revealed  facts  which 
the  very  constitution  of  our  nature  enables  us  to  perceive.”  To 
this  address,  Mr.  George  Ripley  responded  in  a  scholarly  and 
trenchant  pamphlet,  in  which  he  earnestly  vindicated  Schleier- 
macher  and  others  from  the  charge  of  infidelity,  and  proved  by 
citations  from  eminent  theologians  that  the  internal  proof  of  the 
Gospel  had  been  considered  by  the  deepest  thinkers  of  various 
schools  the  principal  evidence  of  its  divine  origin. 

In  this  discussion  both  Ripley  and  Theodore  Parker,  who  wrote 
under  a  nom  de  plume  on  the  same  side,  professed  their  belief  in 
the  historical  reality  of  the  Gospel  miracles.  By  degrees  the 
Transcendental  School,  of  which  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson  was  the 
inspiring  genius,  although  he  could  never  act  as  the  general  of  a 
party,  emerged  into  a  distinct  flourishing  life.  In  1832  Emerson 
had  resigned  his  office  as  a  pastor  in  Boston,  for  the  reason  that 
he  was  not  willing  to  administer  the  Lord’s  Supper.  Lie  printed 
by  way  of  explanation  a  sermon  to  show  that  it  was  not  meant  to 
be  a  perpetual  observance.  In  1836,  in  a  published  address  to 
the  Divinity  School  at  Cambridge,  he  brought  forward  his  charac¬ 
teristic  ideas  respecting  religion,  which  were  considered  by  the 
conservative  Unitarians  to  be  pantheistic  in  their  import.  His 
utterances  won  a  slowly  increasing  sympathy  and  excited,  at  the 
same  time,  an  ardent  opposition.  In  this  new  teaching  Christian¬ 
ity  was  not  recognized  as  a  specially  revealed  or  authoritative  relig¬ 
ion.  Inspiration  is  not  limited  to  the  men  of  the  Bible ;  the  soul 
has  voices  within  it  which  reveal  eternal  truth  :  let  the  individual 
hearken  for  these  utterances  of  the  universal  spirit,  and  no  longer 
lean  on  the  crutches  of  authority.  The  maxim  “  Every  man  his 
own  prophet”  seemed  to  some  to  need  no  further  verification 
when  Mr.  Emerson,  professing  a  carelessness  of  logic,  as  with  the 
insight  though  with  none  of  the  assumption  of  an  oracle,  and  with 
the  subtile,  exquisite  charm  of  his  peculiar  genius,  began  to  impro¬ 
vise  in  the  hearing  of  sympathetic  listeners  of  both  sexes. 

A  crisis  in  the  development  of  Unitarianism  was  reached  when 
Theodore  Parker,  in  1841,  delivered  a  discourse  on  “The  Tran¬ 
sient  and  the  Permanent  in  Christianity,”  in  which  the  New  Tes¬ 
tament  narratives  of  miracles  were  pronounced  to  be  myths.  In 


2  F  • 


434 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


1842  he  set  forth  his  opinions  more  fully  in  a  volume  entitled  Dis¬ 
course  of  Matters  pertaining  to  Religion.  Miracles  were  relegated 
by  Parker  to  the  transient  in  Christianity,  and  by  him  Christianity 
was  classified  with  the  ethnic  religions  as  a  purely  natural  product. 
Without  renouncing  theism,  he  affirmed  that  its  doctrine  issues 
from  the  progress  of  religion  on  the  plane  of  nature,  and  is  not 
derived  from  supernatural  teaching.  The  truths  which  the  Unita¬ 
rians  had  made  the  sum  and  substance  of  the  Gospel  he  asserted 
that  we  know  intuitively.  What  need,  then,  to  use  Paley’s  phrase, 
of  “  the  splendid  apparatus  of  miracles,”  to  prove  what  we  already 
know  by  the  light  of  Nature?  The  immortality  of  the  soul,  it  had 
been  said,  is  established  by  the  resurrection  of  Jesus.  But  it  is 
easier,  Parker  declared,  to  prove  that  we  are  immortal  than  to 
prove  the  resurrection.  In  short,  he  pronounced  the  evidence  of 
miracles  superfluous :  there  was  no  dignus  vindice  nodus.  If  there 
was  nothing  to  prove,  why  should  there  be  any  proof?  The  essen¬ 
tials  of  Christianity  had  been  reduced  to  a  minimum ;  that  mini¬ 
mum  Parker  conveyed  over  to  natural  theology.  His  opinions  at 
first  encountered  a  pretty  general  protest  from  the  side  of  the 
Unitarian  clergy  and  churches. 

As  between  the  older  Unitarians  and  the  orthodox,  so  now 
between  the  conservative  Unitarians  and  the  Radicals,  there  was 
a  striking  difference  in  the  type  of  culture.  The  intuitional  party 
had  given  a  hospitable  and  eager  welcome  to  the  continental 
literature,  not  only  to  the  metaphysicians  and  theologians,  like 
Cousin,  Schleiermacher,  and  De  Wette,  but  also  to  the  poets  and 
critics  — to  such  as  Herder  and  Schiller,  and  especially  to  Goethe. 
Carlyle’s  critical  essays,  before  and  after  he  began  to  pour  out  the 
powerful  jargon  which  became  the  characteristic  of  his  style,  were 
eagerly  read,  and  the  new  evangel  of  sincerity,  unconscious  genius, 
and  hero-worship  mingled  its  stream  in  the  current  already  swollen 
by  its  Teutonic  tributaries.  The  memoir  of  that  woman  of  rare 
intellectual  gifts,  Margaret  Fuller,  gives  one  a  lively  impression  of 
the  enthusiasm  awakened  by  the  European  authors.  To  men  like 
Professor  Norton,  a  student  of  German,  but  who  had  derived  no 
very  agreeable  conception  of  the  German  mind  from  the  earlier 
Rationalistic  writers  whom  he  had  been  called  upon  to  confute  — 
to  men  like  him,  highly  cultivated,  according  to  the  older  stan¬ 
dard,  by  the  perusal  of  Locke  and  the  English  classics,  and  whose 
favorite  poet  was  not  Goethe  but  Mrs.  Hemans,  this  influx  of 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


435 


continental  speculative  mysticism  and  poetry  was  odious  in  the 
extreme.  Some  of  the  devotees  of  the  new  culture  cherished 
ardent  visions  of  an  improved  organization  of  society,  in  which 
existing  abuses  and  hindrances  to  intellectual  progress  should  be 
swept  away.  The  Brook  Farm  Association,  with  its  highly  edu¬ 
cated  circle  of  members,  was  one  fruit  of  this  class  of  ideas. 

Mr.  Parker  was  not  the  man  to  hide  his  light  under  a  bushel. 
The  open  avowal  in  the  pulpit  of  opinions  which  had  commonly 
been  considered  infidel,  made  it  necessary  to  draw  lines.  This, 
on  several  accounts,  was  awkward.  There  was,  to  be  sure,  a  real 
difference  between  those  who  admitted  and  those  who  denied  a 
miraculous  element  in  Christianity.  But  the  promoters  of  the 
Unitarian  movement  had  made  large  professions  of  liberality. 
They  had  called  for  an  unrestricted  mental  freedom.  They  had 
uttered  a  constant  protest  against  “  the  system  of  exclusion,” 
which  thrusts  men  out  of  the  pale  of  the  Church  for  their  opinions. 
They  had  made  it  a  merit  to  cast  off  the  yoke  of  creeds.  Now  it 
seemed  requisite  to  construct  a  creed,  to  define  Christianity,  to 
separate  between  liberality  and  license,  and  practically  to  excom¬ 
municate  ministers,  not  for  an  alleged  want  of  the  Christian  spirit, 
but  for  their  doctrines.  No  one  will  doubt  that  the  appearance 
of  Parkerism  was  a  highly  unwelcome  phenomenon,  and  a  rather 
unmanageable  one,  to  the  leading  representatives  of  the  liberal 
theology.  What  added  to  the  difficulty  was,  that  there  might  not 
be  that  amount  of  agreement  among  themselves  which  would 
appear  requisite  if  a  creed  were  to  be  framed  that  should  embrace 
even  so  much  as  a  tolerably  precise  definition  of  the  authority  to 
be  ascribed  to  the  Scriptures  and  to  Christ. 

Channing  naturally  leaned  strongly  to  an  intuitional  philosophy. 
We  have  seen  how  he  was  drawn  away  from  Locke  by  the  influ¬ 
ence  of  Price.  He  had  made  much  of  the  moral  and  spiritual 
faculties  of  man,  and  of  the  spontaneous  response  which  the  con¬ 
tents  of  the  Gospel  call  forth  from  human  nature.  There  were 
not  wanting,  then,  affinities  to  draw  him  towards  the  new  school 
of  Liberals.  On  the  other  hand,  however,  he  was  deeply  attached 
to  historical  Christianity.  His  biography  contains  a  number  of 
memorable  and  beautiful  letters  in  which  he  expresses  himself 
respecting  Parkerism  temperately  but  frankly.  In  their  whole 
tone  they  manifest,  in  the  most  attractive  way,  the  loveliness  of 
his  Christian  spirit.  He  felt  that  a  rejection  of  the  miracles  was 


436 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


a  rejection  of  Christ.  The  miracles,  he  says,  are  so  interwoven 
with  His  history  that,  if  they  are  torn  away,  nothing  is  left ;  that 
history  is  turned  into  fable ;  the  historical  Christ  is  gone.  But 
why  not  let  Him  go?  First,  the  soul  craves  not  only  the  idea ,  but 
the  existence ,  of  perfection.  Christian  truth  without  Christ  and 
His  character  loses  a  great  portion  of  its  quickening  power.  The 
miracles  are  among  the  manifestations  of  Christ’s  character ;  they 
are  symbolical  of  His  spiritual  influence  —  for  these  reasons  they 
cannot  be  spared.  The  miracles  are  credible.  God  could  not 
approach  a  darkened,  sensual  world  by  mere  abstract  teaching. 
The  inward  perfection  of  Christ  is  itself  a  miracle,  which  renders 
the  outward  acts  of  superhuman  power  easy  of  belief.  Channing 
recoils  from  pantheism,  which  he  sees  to  be  latent  in  the  mind  of 
the  new  school  of  “  true  spiritualists.”  Speaking  of  a  sermon 
which  he  had  heard  on  “  the  loneliness  of  Christ,”  he  says  :  “  I 
claim  little  resemblance  to  my  divine  Friend  and  Saviour,  but  I 
seem  doomed  to  drink  of  this  cup  with  Him  to  the  last.  I  see 
and  feel  the  harm  done  by  this  crude  speculation,  while  I  also 
see  much  nobleness  to  bind  me  to  its  advocates.  In  its  opinions 
generally  I  see  nothing  to  give  me  hope.  .  .  .  The  immense 
distance  of  us  all  from  Christ  ”  in  character  is  a  fact  so  obvious 
that  not  to  recognize  it  implies  such  a  degree  of  self-ignorance, 
and  of  ignorance  of  human  history,  “  that  one  wonders  how  it  can 
have  entered  a  sound  mind.”1  In  these  letters  there  is  no  un¬ 
seemly  denunciation,  but  there  is  genuine,  manly  sorrow  at  the 
promulgation  of  opinions  that  are  regarded  as  undermining  his¬ 
torical  Christianity. 

From  about  the  time  of  Parker’s  innovations  in  theology,  the 
conservative  class  of  Unitarians,  who  resisted  them,  were  gener¬ 
ally,  although  not  universally,  simple  humanitarians  in  their  doc¬ 
trine  concerning  Christ.  They  discarded  the  belief  of  Channing 
in  His  preexistence  as  an  exalted  creature.  But  the  repugnance 
to  Parker’s  negative  positions  gradually  lessened.  He  came  to 
be  commonly  recognized  by  Unitarians  as  representing  one  admis¬ 
sible  type  of  Unitarian  theology.  Even  sympathy  with  his  rejec¬ 
tion  of  the  miraculous  elements  and  events  of  the  Gospel  spread 
until  it  became  the  prevailing  sentiment. 

The  Universalist  denomination  began  in  America  with  the 
preaching  of  John  Murray  (1741-1815),  an  Englishman,  a  con- 

1  Alemoirs ,  Vol.  II.  p.  448. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


437 


vert  to  Methodism,  and  for  a  time  a  Wesleyan  preacher.  He 
adopted  the  doctrine  of  the  final  salvation  of  all,  which  he 
preached  along  the  Atlantic  seaboard,  but  principally  in  New 
England  from  1770  until  his  death.  He  was  a  Trinitarian.  Another 
early  leader  of  the  Universalists  was  Elhanan  Winchester  (1751- 
1 79  7)  ^  who  began  his  ministry  as  a  Baptist  pastor.  On  various 
points  he  differed  from  the  theology  of  Murray.  Walter  Balfour 
(c.  1776-1852),  a  Presbyterian  minister  from  Scotland,  preached 
Universalism  in  America,  and  published  the  Inquiry ,  etc.,  and 
other  writings  in  behalf  of  this  tenet.  The  most  effectual  agent 
in  propagating  Universalism  and  in  giving  definite  form  to  its 
creed  was  Hosea  Ballou  (1771-1852).  The  Universalists  have 
recognized  the  Scriptures  as  a  divine  revelation.  They  have 
rejected  the  doctrines  of  the  Trinity,  the  divinity  of  Christ,  and 
His  expiatory  office.  At  the  outset  they  were  generally  Restora- 
tionists.  Later  they  commonly  disbelieved  in  future  punishment 
altogether ;  but  in  more  recent  times  they  have  often  reverted  to 
the  former  opinion,  in  some  instances  with  higher  views  of  the 
person  and  work  of  Christ. 

By  the  middle  of  the  present  century  the  themes  which  had 
most  engaged  the  attention  of  the  Evangelical  party  in  New  Eng¬ 
land  since  Edwards’s  day  were  beginning  decidedly  to  lose  their 
special  attraction.  Questions  relating  to  the  effect  of  Adam’s  sin, 
to  the  divine  permission  of  sin,  to  natural  and  moral  ability,  were 
perceptibly  receding  into  the  background.  The  person  of  Christ, 
the  Atonement,  the  authority  of  the  Scriptures,  naturalism  and 
supernaturalism,  were  the  topics  that  were  obviously  coming  to 
the  front.  Among  those  called  orthodox,  the  German  theology 
was  modifying  the  type  of  theological  culture  and  tendencies  in 
philosophy.  To  give  a  single  example,  Henry  B.  Smith  was 
thoroughly  conversant  with  the  modern  phases  of  German  thought. 
Upon  certain  able  and  inquisitive  minds,  the  writings  of  Coleridge, 
which  were  first  introduced  to  American  readers  by  President 
Marsh  of  the  University  of  Vermont,  opened  new  vistas  of  thought 
and  inquiry. 

The  indirect  influence  of  German  speculative  thought  in  some 
degree,  and  still  more  the  direct  influence  of  Coleridge,  appeared 
in  Horace  Bushnell,  an  original  and  gifted  preacher,  but  not  a 
technical  scholar.1  If  a  book  was  really  stimulating,  he  found  it 

1  His  Life  and  Letters,  edited  by  his  daughter,  appeared  in  1880. 


438 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


difficult,  he  said,  to  read  it  through,  its  effect  being  to  start  his 
“  mind  off  on  some  track  of  its  own.”  A  few  sentences  of  Cole¬ 
ridge  in  the  Aids  to  Reflection  were  the  germ  of  an  eloquent  trea¬ 
tise  by  Bushnell  on  “  Nature  and  the  Supernatural”  (1858).  In 
it  the  thesis  is  illustrated  that  the  will  by  virtue  of  its  power  of 
initiating  action  is  itself  a  supernatural  agent.  The  first  publica¬ 
tion,  however,  which  brought  Dr.  Bushnell  prominently  before  the 
public  as  a  theological  author  was  his  discourses  on  “  Christian 
Nurture.”  In  this  discussion  he  took  up  the  divine  constitution 
of  the  family  as  a  provision  for  planting  Christian  character  in 
children,  and  of  thus  extending  the  kingdom  of  God.  The 
organic  relation  of  parents  to  their  offspring,  the  organic  unity  of 
the  family,  was  insisted  on  in  opposition  to  an  extreme  theory  of 
individualism.  The  atomic  conception  of  Christian  society  was 
vigorously  attacked.  It  was  the  design  of  Providence  that  char¬ 
acter  should  be  transmitted  from  parent  to  child.  It  should  be 
expected  of  children  that  they  should  grow  up  in  the  exercise  of 
Christian  piety.  To  take  it  for  granted  that  the  young  born  in 
religious  households  are  to  be  irreligious  up  to  the  age  of  matu¬ 
rity,  and  are  then  to  be  suddenly  converted,  was  pronounced  a 
gross  practical  error.  The  main  reliance  of  the  Church  for  the 
spread  of  religion  should  not  be  revivals  and  revivalism,  but  right 
methods  of  Christian  nurture.  Spasmodic  excitements  and  spo¬ 
radic  conversions  were  of  minor  utility  compared  with  the  silent 
agency  of  the  family  within  its  own  circle.  The  criticism  was 
made  that  the  author  had  accounted  for  the  congenital  origin  and 
the  progressive  growth  of  Christian  character  on  the  plane  of 
naturalism,  by  the  law  of  heredity  :  there  was  no  more  recognition 
of  the  agency  of  the  Spirit  of  God,  it  was  said,  than  a  pious  deist, 
who  holds  to  the  immanence  of  the  divine  Spirit  and  Providence 
in  the  whole  creation,  might  allow.  This  criticism,  however,  was 
conceded  not  to  be  valid  as  regards  the  intent  of  the  author,  and 
could  be  justified  only  by  reference  to  the  apparent  drift  of  a 
portion  of  his  language.  He  postulated  an  operation  of  Grace, 
and  an  operation  as  immediate  as  is  presupposed  in  the  prevailing 
creed,  in  the  case  of  adult  conversions.  It  was  evident  to  all 
that  the  book  exhibited  modes  of  thought  diverse  from  those 
in  vogue  among  the  principal  adherents  of  the  New  England 
theology. 

In  the  volume  entitled  God  in  Christ  (1849),  -^r*  Bushnell 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


439 


discussed  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity.  An  essay  of  Schleiermacher, 
translated  by  Professor  Stuart,  was  at  the  basis  of  this  discussion. 
This  was  followed,  in  1851,  by  Christ  in  Theology.  In  these 
works  it  is  contended  that  since  language  is  made  up  of  symbols 
it  is  of  necessity  inaccurate,  so  that  theological  definitions  are 
metaphors  and  creeds  are  in  reality  poems.  They  are  only  par¬ 
tially  successful  attempts  to  express  that  which  can  only  be  set 
forth  in  forms  of  the  imagination.  Following  the  hints  derived 
from  Schleiermacher,  Bushnell  undertook  to  solve  the  problem  of 
the  Trinity  by  bringing  forward  the  Sabellian  hypothesis,  —  that  of 
the  Trinity  as  solely  a  method  of  Revelation,  —  with  which  he  con¬ 
nected  a  view  that  did  not  essentially  differ  from  the  Patripassian 
theory  of  the  person  of  Christ.  Schleiermacher  had  been  led  into 
his  doctrine  by  his  speculative  difficulties  respecting  the  person¬ 
ality  of  God.  Bushnell  was  no  Pantheist.  Yet  he  sought  to  show 
that  personality  in  the  Deity  is  to  us  incomprehensible,  and 
appears  to  clash  with  the  infinitude  of  the  divine  attributes.  It  is 
through  the  medium  of  three  modes  of  personal  action  that  the 
ineffable  One  discloses  Himself  and  comes  near  to  the  apprehen¬ 
sion  of  His  creatures.  The  Logos  is  the  self-revealing  faculty  of 
the  Deity ;  Father,  Son,  and  Spirit  are  the  dramatis  personce. 
through  which  the  hidden  Being  reveals  Himself.  In  Christ,  Bush¬ 
nell  said,  God  manifests  Himself  under  the  limitations  of  human 
life,  —  thinking,  feeling,  suffering  with  us.  The  existence  of  a 
human  spiritual  nature,  if  not  expressly  denied,  was  held  to  be 
practically  of  no  account.  It  was  substantially  the  Apollinarian 
idea.  “  The  human  element  is  nothing  to  me,  save  as  it  brings 
me  to  God,  or  discovers  to  me,  a  sinner,  the  patience  and  brother¬ 
hood  of  God  as  a  Redeemer  from  sin.  ...  The  union  of  the 
divine  and  human,  being  only  for  expression,  what  is  there  in  it  for 
us  beyond  the  expression  ?  There  may  be  a  human  soul  here,  or 
there  may  not :  that  is  a  matter  with  which  we  have  nothing  to  do, 
and  about  which  we  have  not  only  no  right  to  affirm,  but  no  right 
to  inquire.”  1  This  was  Bushnell’s  conception  of  Christ.  God 
surrenders  Himself  to  the  restrictions  of  a  human  organization,  and 
subjects  Himself  to  the  conditions  of  an  earthly  life  on  our  level,  as 
a  medium  through  which  to  manifest  Himself  to  us.  It  is  all,  liter¬ 
ally  speaking,  divine  thought,  divine  emotion,  divine  action,  even 
divine  suffering.  This  was  the  fundamental  thought  in  Dr.  Bush- 

1  Christ  in  Theology ,  pp.  93,  96. 


440 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


nell’s  Christology,  —  the  thought  which,  whatever  were  his  muta¬ 
tions  of  opinion,  was  always  uppermost. 

But  Dr.  Bushnell  did  not  stay  by  the  modal  theory  of  the 
Trinity.  Smitten  by  antagonistic  critics  on  all  sides,  he  began  to 
explore  the  history  of  doctrine,  and  discovered  —  discovered  more 
and  more  —  that  the  Nicene  or  Catholic  definitions  embraced  wel¬ 
come  features  which  had  been  dropped  out  of  later  and  more  pro¬ 
vincial  representations  of  the  doctrine.  There  was  the  great  idea 
of  self-expression,  —  “  God  of  God,”  “  Light  of  Light,”  etc. ;  there 
was  the  subordination  of  the  Son,  the  Revealer,  though  not  in  the 
Arian  sense  of  inferiority  of  attributes ;  there  was  especially  a 
Trinity  belonging  to  the  life  and  activity  of  the  Deity,  and  not  a 
mechanical  juxtaposition  of  three  individuals  or  “  distinctions.” 
“  On  a  careful  study  of  the  creed  prepared  by  this  council  [of 
Nicsea],  as  interpreted  by  the  writings  of  Athanasius  in  defence  of 
it,  I  feel  obliged  to  confess  that  I  had  not  sufficiently  conceived  its 
import,  or  the  title  it  has  to  respect  as  a  Christian  document.”  1 
However,  notwithstanding  his  effort  to  prove  his  close  approach  to 
the  Nicene  formula,  he  still  withholds  his  assent  to  the  hypothesis 
of  an  immanent  Trinity.  He  holds  that  the  distinction  of  persons 
is  incidental  to  revelation,  which,  to  be  sure,  may  —  but  may 
not  —  have  been  eternal.  Whether  that  distinction  will  ever  cease 
to  be,  he  likewise  finds  it  impossible  to  conclude.  In  short,  the 
immanence  and  eternity  of  the  personal  distinctions  in  the  Deity 
he  is  not  quite  prepared  to  admit.  Still  later,  in  an  article  marked 
by  consummate  ability,  —  the  ablest  of  his  contributions  to  this 
discussion,2 — he  makes  a  further  advance  towards  the  Nicene 
standard.  Here  he  argues  that  the  infinity  of  God  engulfs  us  in 
Pantheism  unless  we  conceive  of  Him  as  a  triple  personality ;  the 
term  ‘  person,’  whether  as  a  predicate  of  the  One  or  of  each  of 
the  Three,  being  a  figure,  an  approximative  term,  and  so  far  inde¬ 
finable.  The  “  practical  infinity  of  God  and  the  practical  person¬ 
ality  of  God  ”  are  both  secured  by  the  Trinitarian  conception.  By 
some  interior  necessity  of  His  nature,  He  is  thus  “  accommodated 
in  His  action  to  the  finite  ;  .  .  .  He  is  eternally  threeing  Himself,  or 
generating  three  persons.  ...  In  some  high  sense  indefinable,  He 
is  datelessly  and  eternally  becoming  three,  or  by  a  certain  inward 

1  Christ  in  Theology,  p.  177. 

2  The  Christian  Trinity  a  Practical  Truth .  New  Englajider,  November, 
1854. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


441 


necessity  being  accommodated  in  His  action  to  the  categories  of 
finite  apprehension,  —  adjusted  to  that  as  that  to  the  receiving  of 
this  mystery.  ...  We  must  have  no  jealousy  of  the  Three,  as  if 
they  were  to  drift  us  away  from  the  unity  or  from  reason ;  being 
perfectly  assured  of  this,  that  in  using  the  triune  formula,  in  the 
limberest,  least  constrained  way  possible,  and  allowing  the  plu¬ 
rality  to  blend,  in  the  freest  manner  possible,  with  all  our  acts  of 
worship,  —  preaching,  praying,  singing,  and  adoring,  —  we  are 
only  doing  with  three  persons  just  what  we  do  with  one  ;  making 
no  infringement  of  the  unity  with  the  Three,  more  than  of  the 
infinity  with  the  One.”  Here  is  a  certain  real  immanence  of  the 
Trinity.  Still,  however,  there  is  a  relation,  as  a  necessary  property 
of  the  Deity,  to  the  finite  and  to  revelation ;  hence  a  dependence 
on  the  finite,  at  least  as  a  possible  existence.  It  is  immanence 
conditioned  on  relativity.  The  Nicene  doctrine  holds  to  the 
Trinity  as  being  independent  of  such  a  relation,  as  belonging  to 
the  eternal  necessary  activity  of  the  Divine  Being,  because  it  is  the 
realization  to  Himself  of  His  own  nature.  It  steers  clear  of  every 
germ  of  Pantheism.  Bushnell’s  statement  still  postulates  a  poten¬ 
tial  relation  to  the  finite  as  the  ground  or  condition  of  tri-person¬ 
ality.  It  is  evident,  however,  that  the  Athanasian  theology  more 
and  more  commended  itself  to  Bushnell’s  mind.  The  movement 
of  his  thought  was  in  this  direction. 

Bushnell’s  departure  from  the  prevalent  doctrine  of  the  Atone¬ 
ment  was  even  more  provocative  of  dissent.  On  the  orthodox 
side  in  New  England  there  was  a  popular  representation  of  the 
work  of  Christ  which  was  offensively  meagre.  His  death  was 
treated  as  a  make-weight  in  a  scheme  of  moral  government.  At 
a  given  point  a  certain  amount  of  suffering  was  wanted  by  way  of 
counterpoise  to  the  penalty  remitted,  and  the  passion  of  Christ 
served  the  purpose.  The  defect  arising  from  the  limited  quantity 
of  suffering  was  said  to  be  balanced  by  the  dignity  of  His  person. 
The  governmental  theory  as  set  forth  by  the  younger  Edwards,  and 
before  him  by  Grotius,  was  the  opinion  in  vogue.  The  death  of 
Christ  was  not  penalty,  but  a  substitute  for  it,  —  an  expression  of 
God’s  abhorrence  of  sin,  equivalent,  in  respect  to  the  ends  of  gov¬ 
ernment,  to  the  infliction  of  the  penalty.  Very  well,  said  Bushnell, 
let  it  be  considered  an  “expression.”  The  correlate  of  expression 
is  impression ;  and  if  there  is  expression  it  must  be  according  to 
aesthetic  laws ;  it  must  be  in  a  mode  conformed  to  the  laws  by 


442 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


which  thought  or  feeling  is  conveyed  from  mind  to  mind.  What 
are  those  laws?  How  is  it  that  the  death  of  Christ  is  thus  expres¬ 
sive?  To  this  question  the  New  England  theology,  as  he  con¬ 
tended,  gave  no  intelligible  answer.  But  Bushnell,  in  his  earlier 
expositions  of  the  subject,  gave  up  altogether  the  propitiatory 
idea  as  a  literal  truth.  Christ,  he  taught,  came  into  the  world  to 
renovate  character.  This  was  the  one  comprehensive  end  of  His 
mission.  Nothing  was  needed  but  the  reconciliation  of  men  to 
God,  or  a  new  spirit  in  men.  Christ  produces  'this  through  the 
power  exerted  by  Him  as  bringing  into  visible  manifestation  the 
forbearance,  pity,  yearning,  forgiving  love  of  God.  Disobedience 
and  distrust  are  both  conquered ;  they  melt  away  under  this  face- 
to-face  view  of  the  divine  goodness.  The  restoration  of  the  trans¬ 
gressor  to  confiding  communion  with  God  arrests  the  progress  of 
that  disordered  action  of  our  spiritual  nature  which  is  the  principal 
penalty  of  sin.  There  results  a  healing  of  the  soul,  —  inward 
health  and  peace.  This  is  the  moral  view  of  the  Atonement 
which,  in  its  characteristic  principle,  was  advocated  by  Abelard. 
It  is  not  radically  different  from  the  Socinian  theory.  But  Bush¬ 
nell  held  fast  to  the  divinity  of  Christ,  who  is  ever  present  to  the 
believing  soul ;  and  he  emphasized  the  truth  that  our  life  is  per¬ 
petually  in  Christ.  He  is  infinitely  more  than  an  example  to  be 
i  copied  :  he  is  a  power  of  righteousness.  Much  that  was  involved 
|  in  the  old  idea  of  the  unio  mystica  Bushnell  interwove  in  his  con¬ 
ception.  There  is  a  living,  spiritual,  reciprocal  fellowship  between 
the  believer  and  Christ ;  but  propitiation  and  all  kindred  terms 
were  declared  to  be  the  language  of  appearance  :  they  are  figures, 
as  when  we  say  that  the  sun  rises.  A  change  which  takes  place 
in  ourselves  we  metaphorically  impute  to  God.  The  removal  of 
our  distrust  and  alienation,  which  sets  us  at  one  with  Him,  we  rep¬ 
resent  to  ourselves  as  a  removal  of  hostility  in  Him.  But  this 
imaginative  exercise,  Bushnell  contended,  is  necessary  to  the  end 
in  view,  —  which  is  the  production  within  us  of  penitent  and  trust¬ 
ful  feeling  towards  God.  It  is  the  means,  therefore,  of  that  change 
in  us  which  is  the  indispensable  condition  of  restored  communion 
with  Him.  The  sacrifices  of  the  old  covenant  were  a  “  transac¬ 
tional  liturgy,”  which  was  operative  in  this  way.  BushnelFs 
standing  illustration  is  the  analogy  of  prayer.  This  is  not,  he 
tells  us,  a  self- magnetizing  process.  Prayer  is  to  produce  an 
effect.  Nevertheless  the  effect  is  only  indirectly  an  effect  on 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


443 


God.  He  is  not  changed.  The  effort  to  change  Him  produces) 
such  a  change  in  us.  that  the  sole  obstacle  to  the  exercise  of  His 
beneficence  towards  us  is  removed.  In  this  circuitous  way  wej 
may  be  said  to  prevail  with  God  in  supplication.  In  no  other* 
way  is  He  said  to  be  propitiated. 

It  cannot  be  said  that  the  “  altar  form,”  as  originally  presented, 
continued  to  satisfy  Bushnell  himself.  In  his  elaborate  treatise 
on  “  Vicarious  Sacrifice,”  he  set  forth  the  moral  view  of  the  Atone¬ 
ment, —  the  renewing  influence  upon  character  which  flows  out 
from  Christ,  from  His  sympathy  and  suffering  with  us,  and  His 
whole  collective  manifestation.  He  went  beyond  his  former  dog¬ 
matic  statements  so  far  as  to  give  some  place  to  the  voluntary 
participation  of  Christ  in  “  the  corporate  curse  ”  of  the  race,  or 
in  the  sufferings  which  come  upon  mankind  as  a  retributive  inflic-  i 
tion  consequent  upon  sin.  But  he  was  careful  to  say  that  he  laid 
no  great  amount  of  stress  on  this  element  in  his  view.  One  lead¬ 
ing  proposition,  it  should  be  remarked,  in  this  treatise  is  that  the 
incarnation  and  suffering  of  Christ  fall  under  a  law  of  self-sacrifice 
which  is  of  universal  obligation. 

It  is  a  fine  instance  of  Bushnell’s  intellectual  honesty  that  he 
came  before  the  public  once  more  with  a  frank  avowal  of  a  modi¬ 
fication  of  his  opinion  on  this  momentous  theme.  This  was  in  his 
Foj'giveness  and  Lazo  (1874).  He  still  considered  the  aton¬ 
ing  function  of  Christ  to  be  nothing  exceptional  in  its  principle, 
to  be  nothing  at  variance  with  general  law.  It  was  grounded,  as  1 
the  title-page  announced,  “  in  principles  interpreted  by  human 
analogies.”  Bnt  there  had  been  “  an  unexpected  arrival  of  fresh  \ 
light  ”  into  his  mind.  He  had  caught  sight  of  a  meaning  and  a  ) 
reality  in  propitiation  which  he  had  not  discerned  before.  It  had  / 
struck  him  that  in  all  cases  of  heavy  grievance,  even  though  there 
is  a  placable  wish  and  intent,  it  is  psychologically  impossible  to  I 
quiet  the  resentful,  retributive  impulse  inherent  in  one’s  own 
conscience,  save  by  undertaking  some  work  involving  loss  and 
suffering  in  behalf  of  the  offender.  Only  by  this  means  is  the  1 
feeling  of  forgiveness  realized  in  the  heart  of  the  party  wronged ;  ' 
only  thus  are  all  traces  of  the  vengeful  sentiment  of  justice  dissi- \ 
pated.  This  Dr.  Bushnell  supposed  to  be  a  general  fact,  holding! 
true  of  men,  and  by  analogy  presumably  of  all  rational  beings.  It 
is  a  fact  of  experience,  however  inexplicable  it  may  be.  Accord- 1 
ingly  God  Himself  in  Christ  enters  upon  a  work  of  self-sacrifice) 


444 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


and  self-propitiation.  By  undergoing  suffering,  by  the  cross  and 
passion,  He  realizes  in  Himself  the  clemency  which  He  would  fain 
exercise.  He  appeases  His  own  justly  indignant  sentiment.  The 
end  was  still  the  recovery  of  the  sinful  creature  from  the  guilty  and 
painful  bondage  of  sin.  This  was  the  benefit  to  be  imparted.  It 
is  to  be  observed  that  one  leading  idea  runs  like  a  thread  through 
all  his  thinking  on  this  subject,  in  its  successive  stages.  It  is  God 
Himself  who  is  active  and  passive  in  all  the  experiences  of  Christ. 
They  are  an  expression  of  God.  It  is  the  divine,  not  the  human, 
which  acts  and  suffers.  The  human  is  at  best  but  a  transparent 
glass,  through  which  we  look  directly  into  the  heart  of  God.  The 
fundamental  thought  with  which  Bushnell  started  remained  with 
him  to  the  end.  There  is  not  a  full  recognition  of  the  real  human- 
t  ity  of  Christ. 

In  this  treatise 1  Dr.  Bushnell  remarks  that  “  the  staple  of  being 
and  capacity”  in  wicked  men  diminishes  by  a  natural  law,  and 
adds  that  the  possibility  is  thus  suggested  that  at  some  remote 
period  they  may  be  quite  wasted  away  or  extirpated.”  The  opin¬ 
ion  that  reprobate  men  will  thus  be  “annihilated,”  which,  as  will 
be  seen,  has  had  its  advocates  in  Germany  and  in  England,  has 
been  maintained  in  the  United  States  in  writings  of  Dr.  Lyman 
Abbott  and  by  other  authors.  The  doctrine  —  not  coupled  with 
the  doctrine  of  “  conditional  immortality” — of  a  continued  pro¬ 
bation  of  such  as  do  not  hear  or  wilfully  reject  the  offers  of 
salvation  through  Christ  has  been  supported  as  the  necessary 
consequence  of  a  general  Atonement  by  able  theologians  of  the 
Andover  School  of  Theology. 

The  modifications  of  Calvinism  in  the  New  England  theology 
have  met  with  a  steady  opposition  which  has  had  its  principal 
centre  in  the  Princeton  Theological  School,  founded  in  1812.  Its 
doctrines  are  presented  in  the  elaborate  treatise  of  its  most  cele¬ 
brated  teacher,  Charles  Hodge.2  By  him  the  church  doctrine  of 
the  eternal  generation  of  the  Son  is  defended.  This  doctrine  was 
maintained,  in  opposition  to  Stuart,  by  Miller,  also  a  professor  at 
Princeton.  On  the  subject  of  Original  Sin,  the  doctrine  of  the 
immediate  imputation  of  Adam’s  sin  on  the  basis  of  the  Covenant 

1  p-  147- 

2  Systematic  Theology  (3  vols.  1872).  A  clear  summary  of  the  Princeton 
theology  is  given  by  Dr.  A.  A.  Hodge  in  his  Outlines  of  Theology  (1  vol. 
1879). 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


445 


is  supported.  The  realistic  hypothesis,  which  is  taught  in  the 
system  of  Shedd,  is  combated.  The  relation  of  Adam  is  alleged 
to  be  that  of  a  representative,  acting  for  the  posterity  to  be  born 
-of  him,  according  to  a  benevolent,  as  well  as  righteous,  arrange¬ 
ment  instituted  of  God,  whereby  the  penalty  of  his  sin  is  judicially 
inflicted  upon  them.  Consequently,  they  are  born  with  a  sinful 
tendency  to  evil-doing,  which  realizes  itself  at  the  beginning  of 
personal  agency  in  actual  transgressions.  This  inborn  depravity 
carries  in  it  a  just  condemnation  to  eternal  death,  unless  redeem¬ 
ing  grace  intervenes.  A  parallelism  is  affirmed  to  exist  between 
the  relation  of  Adam  on  the  one  hand,  as  the  author  and  source 
of  condemnation,  and  the  relation  of  Christ  on  the  other.  The 
righteousness  of  God  requires  that  all  sin  should  be  adequately 
punished.  The  Atonement  is  a  substitution  judicial  in  its  nature 
and  effect,  and  thus  avails  necessarily  for  the  salvation  of  all  for 
whom  it  was  intended. 

The  spread  of  the  New  England  theology,  especially  in  the 
later  developments  of  the  School  of  Edwards,  produced  theological 
contests  in  the  Presbyterian  Church.  Their  result,  in  connection 
with  other  causes  of  difference,  led  to  the  division  of  that  body 
in  1838,  which  continued  down  to  1869-70 ;  the  Presbyterian 
Church  of  the  South,  in  the  interval,  in  consequence  of  political 
estrangement,  having  broken  off  from  the  “  Old  School  ”  section. 


CHAPTER  III 


THEOLOGY  IN  ENGLAND  IN  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  :  THE  EVAN¬ 
GELICAL  SCHOOL  IN  THE  ESTABLISHED  CHURCH - THE  PHILOSOPHY 

AND  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  COLERIDGE  —  THE  EARLY  ORIEL  SCHOOL  : 
WHATELEY,  ARNOLD  —  THE  OXFORD  MOVEMENT  :  ITS  SOURCES  AND 
LEADERS  :  ITS  PRINCIPLES  AND  AIMS  :  THE  TRACTS  :  THE  HAMP¬ 
DEN  CONTROVERSY  :  THE  CONVERSION  OF  NEWMAN  :  THE  DOCTRINE 
OF  THE  EUCHARIST  AND  OTHER  TENETS  OF  THE  OXFORD  SCHOOL  : 
THE  GORHAM  CASE  :  CANON  LIDDON  :  CANON  GORE  :  J.  B.  MOZ- 
LEY’S  THEOLOGICAL  TEACHING 

The  Evangelical  School  in  the  Established  Church  was  largely, 
although  by  no  means  wholly,  the  fruit  of  the  Methodist  revival. 
If  Whitefield  was  not  its  founder,  he  was  its  efficient  promoter. 
Among  the  preachers  and  writers  of  this  school  are  Henry  Venn, 
Romaine,  John  Newton,  the  pastor  of  Cowper,  Thomas  Scott, 
Milner,  and  Hannah  More.  Wilberforce’s Practical  View ,  published 
in  1797,  had  a  great  influence  both  in  Great  Britain  and  America, 
and  was  translated  into  a  number  of  languages.  Simeon  had  a 
remarkably  successful  career  at  Cambridge  as  a  preacher  of  the 
Evangelical  School.  But  of  this  school,  great  as  was  the  service 
rendered  to  the  cause  of  practical  religion  by  it,  little  is  to  be  said 
in  a  history  of  theology.  It  formed  the  strength  of  the  Low  Church 
party,  which  was  prevalent  in  the  early  decades  of  the  present 
century.  Its  leaders  cherished  Calvinistic  opinions.  It  was  one 
of  their  defects  that  so  little  was  done  by  them  to  throw  light  upon 
the  reasonableness  of  the  doctrines  which  were  inculcated  with  so 
much  faith  and  fervor. 

The  distinction  of  introducing  a  new  and  more  spiritual  method 
into  English  theology  belongs  to  Samuel  Taylor  Coleridge,  equally 
eminent  as  a  poet  and  philosopher.  Versed  in  the  systems 
of  the  later  German  philosophers,  and  drawing  from  these 

446 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


447 


sources  what  was  congenial  with  his  own  thoughts,  he  still  evinces 
always  the  originality  of  true  genius.  Unhappily,  he  constructed 
no  system.  The  most  orderly  exposition  of  his  religious  ideas  and 
speculations  is  found  in  the  Aids  to  Reflection ,  and  in  essays  in  The 
Friend.  But  scattered  through  his  writings  of  a  more  miscella¬ 
neous  nature  are  quickening  suggestions  and  criticisms.  Through 
Coleridge,  the  characteristic  defect  of  the  orthodoxy  of  the  last 
century,  its  external  and  rationalizing  mode  of  explaining  and 
defending  Christianity,  gives  place  to  a  deeper  insight  and  a  more 
profound  philosophical  apprehension.  A  fundamental  principle 
in  the  teaching  oLColeridge  is  the  distinction  between  reason  and 
understanding.  It  is  substantially  the  distinction  of  Kant,  but 
modified  in  such  a  way  that  reason  is  conceived  of  as  the  organ 
of  supersensuous  realities,  by  which  they  are  recognized  and  their 
existence  is  verified.  It  is  the  faculty  of  intuitions  as  to  things 
above  sense.  With  Jacobi,  it  is  described  as  an  organ  “  bearing 
the  same  relation  to  spiritual  objects,  the  universal,  the  eternal, 
and  the  necessary,  as  the  eye  bears  to  material  and  contingent  phe¬ 
nomena."  This  doctrine  bears  directly  on  the  relative  place  and 
weight  of  what  are  called  the  “  evidences  ”  of  religion,  both  nat¬ 
ural  and  revealed.  A  second  fundamental  principle  of  Coleridge 
is  the  distinction  between  Nature  and  Spirit.  Nature  embraces 
the  realm  subject  to  the  law  of  cause  and  effect.  Spirit  is  self- 
determining  and  self-conscious.  The  will,  not  being  in  this  net¬ 
work  of  causation,  but  self-determining,  —  that  is,  originating 
its  own  acts  and  states,  —  belongs  in  another  and  higher  order 
than  that  of  Nature.  Coleridge  condemns  the  theory  of  “  mod¬ 
ern  Calvinism  ”  as  really  destructive  of  will,  and  as  dissonant 
from  the  conception  of  early  Lutheranism  and  Calvinism.  It  is 
“  the  difference  of  a  captive  and  enslaved  will,  and  no  will  at  all.” 

Coleridge  holds  of  all  the  ideas  of  which  we  are  assured  by 
conscience,  directly  or  implicitly,  —  ideas  derived  “from  the  moral 
being,”  — that  they  cannot,  like  “  theoretical  positions,  be  pressed 
onward  into  all  their  logical  consequences.”  On  these,  the  law  of 
conscience,  and  not  the  canons  of  logic,  must  be  heeded.  A  veto 
at  least  belongs  to  this  law.  Inferences  are  not  to  be  admitted 
which  are  repugnant  to  the  dictates  of  conscience. 

The  ultimate  source  of  our  belief  in  God  is  to  be  found  in 
the  moral  and  spiritual  nature  of  man.  His  existence  is  not 
literally  demonstrable.  Some  room  is  left  “  for  will  and  moral 


448 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


election.”  It  is  a  truth  corroborated  by  everything  without  as 
well  as  within  us.  Scripture  teaches  us  that  miracles  of  them¬ 
selves  cannot  work  conviction  in  the  mind,  —  not  if  a  man  were 
to  rise  from  the  dead  to  confirm  them.  If  the  spiritual  truths 
“  which  derive  their  evidence  from  within  ”  are  not  believed,  mira¬ 
cles,  even  were  they  credited,  would  be  of  no  practical  efficacy. 
The  right  order  of  proofs  is  inverted  by  the  Paleyan  school. 
There  must  be  “  a  predisposing  warmth  ”  in  the  soul.  Moreover, 
the  attempt  must  not  be  made  to  carry  conviction  respecting  the 
mysteries  of  faith  by  borrowing  faulty  analogies  from  human  ex¬ 
perience.  The  proofs  of  the  divinity  of  Christ  are  in  the  require¬ 
ments  of  our  moral  being.  “  On  the  doctrine  of  Redemption 
depends  the  faith,  the  duty,  of  believing  in  the  divinity  of  our 
Lord.”  There  is  an  “  utter  incompatibility”  of  the  offices  of 
Christ  as  Saviour  and  Mediator  with  a  mere  creature. 

In  his  posthumous  Confessions  of  an  Inquiring  Spirit,  Coleridge 
has  presented  striking  suggestions  respecting  the  inspiration  of  the 
Scriptures.  The  evidence  of  the  inspiration  of  the  Bible  is  internal. 
In  the  Scriptures,  says  Coleridge,  “I  have  met  everywhere  more 
or  less  copious  sources  of  truth,  and  power,  and  purifying  im¬ 
pulses.  .  .  .  Need  I  say  that  I  have  found  words  for  my  inmost 
thoughts,  sounds  for  my  joy,  utterances  for  my  hidden  griefs,  and 
pleadings  for  shame  and  my  feebleness  ?  .  .  .  Whatever  finds  me, 
bears  witness  for  itself  that  it  has  proceeded  from  a  Holy  Spirit,” 
etc.  Coleridge  does  not  hold  to  the  infallibility  of  all  parts  of 
the  Scriptures.  He  suggests  that  the  spirit  of  the  whole  book  is 
to  judge  each  separate  part.  But  faith  in  Christ  precedes  faith 
in  the  Scriptures. 

Coleridge  rejects  the  Arminian  solution  of  the  problem  of 
Original  Sin,  and  criticises  Jeremy  Taylor’s  exposition  of  the  sub¬ 
ject.  His  own  view  is  as  follows  :  At  the  beginning  of  the  con¬ 
scious  life  of  each  individual,  his  will  is  found  to  be  determined 
to  the  inferior  good.  This  evil  direction  of  the  will  is  common  to 
all  men,  and  is  the  source  of  all  particular  sins  of  habit  and  act. 
This  evil  disposition  presupposes  an  act  originating  it,  but  known 
only  through  its  consequences.  It  is  a  timeless  act.  “  It  is  a 
link  in  the  chain  of  historic  instances  whereof  Adam  is  the  first.” 
It  is  not,  however,  instilled  into  my  will  by  the  will  of  another. 
The  phrase,  “  the  old  man,”  is  used  in  the  Epistles  of  Paul  as  the 
equivalent  of  “  Adam,”  and  is  used  symbolically  and  universally. 


✓ 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


449 


In  this  matter,  every  man  is  the  adequate  representative  of  all. 
That  anything  further  is  involved  in  the  relation  of  our  sin  to 
Adam’s  can  neither  be  denied  nor  conceived. 

Respecting  the  Atonement,  Coleridge  says  that  the  four  generic 
representations  in  the  New  Testament  of  this  truth  are  representa¬ 
tions  not  of  the  redemption  act  itself,  but  of  its  effects.  These 
elfects  are  depicted  by  so  many  analogies  drawn  from  human  rela¬ 
tions.  The  effect  itself  is  denoted  by  St.  John,  as  far  as  it  can 
be  to  our  minds,  by  the  term  ‘  regeneration,’  involving  deliver¬ 
ance  from  spiritual  death.  As  to  the  redemption  act  itself,  we 
are  taught  that  Christ  was  made  a  life-giving  Spirit,  and  that  the 
Incarnation,  the  obedience  of  Christ,  His  death  for  us,  which 
involves  a  conquest  of  death  for  all  who  receive  Him,  was  neces¬ 
sary.  •■'The  redemptive  act  presupposes  an  Agent  who  can  at  once 
act  on  the  Will  as  an  exciting  cause,  quasi  ab  extra ,  and  in  the 
will  “  as  the  condition  of  its  potential  and  the  ground  of  its  actual 
being.”  Regeneration  is  the  sum  total  of  the  effect,  but  its  conse¬ 
quences  are  purification  from  sin  and  deliverance  from  its  inherent 
and  penal  consequences  in  the  world  to  come.  It  is  a  mistake  to 
attribute  to  Coleridge  the  opinion  that  the  atoning  work^bf  Christ 
consists  in  its  power  to  affect  the  minds  of  men.  That  Act  is  left 
a  mystery  on  which  only  partial  light  can  be  thrown. 

In  the  view  which  Coleridge  takes  of  the  Church,  Coleridge 
dissents  from  Hooker.  Church  and  State  are  not  one  and  the 
same  society  in  different  aspects.  He  agrees  with  Warburton  that 
originally  they  are  distinct  and  independent.  The  Visible  Church 
of  Christ  is  not  to  be  confounded  with  the  National  Church.  The 
former  has  ministers  of  its  own,  appointed  and  sustained  by  itself. 
The  National  Church  is  created  by  the  Nation  for  the  moral  cult¬ 
ure  of  the  people.  The  Nation,  on  fixed  terms,  employs  the 
ministers  of  the  Visible  Church,  to  do  the  work.  The  connection, 
however,  is  a  separable  one.  Coleridge’s  hostility  both  to  the 
identifying  of  the  Church  with  the  State,  and  of  the  Church  with 
the  clergy,  is  thus  emphatically  expressed  :  — 

“  As  far  as  the  principle  on  which  Archbishop  Laud  and  his 
followers  acted  went  to  reactuate  the  idea  of  the  Church,  as  a 
coordinate  and  living  power  by  right  of  Christ’s  institution  and 
express  promise,  I  go  along  with  them  ;  but  I  soon  discover  that 
by  the  Church  they  meant  the  clergy,  the  hierarchy  exclusively, 
and  then  I  fly  off  from  them  in  a  tangent.  For  it  is  this  very 


450 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


interpretation  of  the  Church,  that  according  to  my  conviction 
constituted  the  first  and  fundamental  apostasy ;  and  I  hold  it  for 
one  of  the  greatest  mistakes  of  our  polemic  divines,  in  their  con¬ 
troversies  with  the  Romanists,  that  they  trace  all  the  corruptions 
of  the  gospel  faith  to  the  Papacy.” 

From  about  the  year  1815  to  the  middle  of  the  present  century, 
Oxford  was  the  centre  and  source  of  theological  movements  of 
great  moment.  The  first  of  these  was  connected  with  what  is 
designated  the  Earlier  Oriel  School.  It  is  in  strong  contrast  with 
the  later  school,  led  by  John  Henry  Newman  and  his  associates, 
which  is  also  linked  in  its  origin  to  the  same  college.  The  prin¬ 
cipal  representatives  of  the  Earlier  Oriel  School  are  Richard 
Whately,  who  became  Archbishop  of  Dublin,  and  Thomas  Arnold, 
the  head- master  of  Rugby  School.  In  a  sense  they  stood  by 
themselves.  They  were  not  affiliated  with  the  Evangelical  Party, 
not  being  in  sympathy  with  its  tone  or  with  its  standard  of  ortho¬ 
doxy,  and  they  w£re  at  a  further  remove  still  from  High  Church 
doctrine  in  any  of  its  phases.  Whately,  as  to  his  point  of  view 
and  general  spirit  as  a  religious  thinker,  has  been  fitly  likened  to 
Grotius.  He  handled  with  clearness  and  logical  strength  what¬ 
ever  subject  he  took  up.  In  his  Christian  Evidences  and  in 
his  annotated  edition  of  Paley  on  the  same  theme,  a  quite  promi¬ 
nent  place  is  assigned  to  the  external  proofs,  after  the  manner 
of  the  apologists  of  the  eighteenth  century.  In  his  work  on 
the  “  Kingdom  of  Christ  ”  he  holds  fast  to  the  idea  that  the  Church 
is  a  distinct  society,  not  to  be  confounded  with  the  State,  with 
which  it  may  be  allied.  He  approximates  to  a  Congregational 
idea  of  the  nature  of  the  Church.  He  denies  xYpostolic  Succes¬ 
sion  as  not  capable  of  proof  and  as  not  necessary  to  the  valid 
exercise  of  the  ministry.  The  analogies  of  political  obligations 
are  applied  to  the  duty  of  conforming  to  existing  modes  of  eccle¬ 
siastical  organization,  and,  as  an  extreme  resort,  to  the  right  of 
secession  or  revolution.  In  his  Essays  on  Some  of  the  Difficulties 
in  the  Writings  of  St.  Paul,  he  opposes  Calvinistic  election.  This 
position,  with  other  kindred  views,  along  with  his  opinions  per¬ 
taining  to  the  future  state  —  he  held  to  conditional  immortality  — 
and  his  rejection  of  the  doctrine  that  the  observance  of  Sunday 
rests  on  the  legal  basis  of  the  Jewish  Sabbath,  were  obnoxious  to 
the  Evangelical  Party.  But  the  Broad  Church  position  of  Whately 
lacked  certain  vital  characteristics  of  the  party  bearing  the  same 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


451 

name  at  a  later  day.  This  last  took  a  different  view  of  the  nature 
of  revelation  and  of  its  evidences. 

The  theological  opinions  of  Arnold  are  disclosed  in  his  pub¬ 
lished  sermons,  his  reviews  and  essays,  and  in  the  correspondence 
printed  in  Stanley’s  Memoir.  Everywhere  in  Arnold’s  utterances 
there  is  manifest  an  intense  moral  earnestness.  He  gives  the 
foremost  place  in  his  creed  to  the  truth  of  the  divinity  of  Jesus 
Christ.  He  rejects  the  doctrine  of  the  absolute  inerrancy  of  the 
Scriptures  ;  but  he  holds  that  concerning  the  things  of  faith,  in 
cases  where  the  Apostles  were  in  error, — as  in  the  expectation  of 
a  speedy  Second  Advent  of  Christ,  —  a  special  provision  has  been 
made  to  guard  against  conclusions  adverse  to  their  authority, 
and  against  harmful  practical  inferences  on  the  part  of  their 
readers.  He  expresses  critical  views  pertaining  to  the  Canon  — 
for  example,  the  origin  and  date  of  the  book  of  Daniel  —  views 
at  variance  with  the  traditional  opinion,  and  foretells  that  the 
coming  discussion  of  these  topics  will  produce  a  commotion  like 
that  caused  by  the  Reformation.  On  the  subject  of  the  Church, 
Arnold  reproduces  Hooker’s  theory  of  the  identity  of  Church  and 
State  in  a  Christian  community.  Their  functions  are  inseparable. 
He  would  make  the  English  Church  so  comprehensive  as  to  include 
in  it  the  body  of  the  people,  and  thus  to  become  literally  national. 
Arnold  contends  with  the  utmost  ardor  of  conviction  against  the 
doctrine  of  a  priesthood  in  the  Christian  Church,  a  doctrine  which 
he  considers  to  have  been  the  fountain  of  ecclesiastical  tyranny  and 
corruption.  Apostolical  Succession,  and  everything  which  is  made 
a  part  or  warrant  of  sacerdotalism,  he  vigorously  repudiates. 

To  the  “  Oxford  Movement,”  to  give  it  the  title  usually  applied 
to  it  at  present,  Whately  and  Arnold  were  always  hostile.  From 
the  talents  of  its  originators  and  the  interest  that  belongs  to  their 
personal  history,  and  from  its  profound  and,  as  the  event  has 
proved,  lasting  influence  on  the  Anglican  Church  in  its  various 
branches,  the  Movement  must  retain  a  conspicuous  place  in  the 
annals  of  English  Christianity.  Here  we  have  to  consider  it  in 
its  bearings  on  Christian  doctrine.  In  that  fascinating  piece  of 
autobiography,  the  Apologia  of  Newman,  we  have  an  account  of 
the  rise  and  progress  of  the  party  of  which  —  up  to  the  time 
of  his  secession  to  Rome  —  he  was  the  life  and  soul.1 

1  The  literature  relating  to  the  Oxford  Movement  is  copious.  The  Apologia 
pro  sua  Vita,  occasioned  by  a  paragraph  from  the  pen  of  Charles  Kingsley, 


452 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


Newman  gives  John  Keble  the  credit  of  starting  the  Movement 
by  his  assize  sermon  at  Oxford  in  July,  1833,  in  which  Keble  dis¬ 
cussed  the  existing  perils  of  the  Church.  Hurrell  Froude  was  a 
pupil  of  Keble,  and  in  his  turn  influenced  his  teacher.  Froude 
brought  Newman  into  personal  connection  with  Keble.  Pusey, 
who  enlisted  somewhat  later  in  the  cause  (in  1835),  brought  to 
the  advocacy  of  it  advantages  arising  from  his  aristocratic  con¬ 
nections,  his  academic  station  of  Regius  Professor,  and  his  repute 
as  an  Oriental  scholar.  The  proceeding  of  these  and  the  rest  of 
the  group  who  participated  in  the  Movement  in  its  early  stages, 
not  unlike  as  it  was  in  some  respects  to  the  undertaking  of  John 
Wesley  and  his  Oxford  associates  a  century  before,  differed  from 
it  in  one  striking  particular.  Wesley  and  his  companions  em¬ 
barked  in  the  work  of  propagating  the  Gospel  among  the  people  by 
preaching  in-doors  and  out-of-doors.  It  was  the  primary  aim  of 
Newman  and  his  friends  to  produce  a  change  within  the  Church. 
Their  appeals  were  to  the  cultivated  class,  and  especially  to  the 
clergy. 

The  enemy  which  the  Oxford  leaders  set  out  to  resist  and  to 
baffle  was  “  Liberalism.”  It  was  the  period  in  Great  Britain  of 
Catholic  Emancipation  and  of  the  Reform  Bill.  The  state  of 
things  is  sketched  by  Newman  in  the  Apologia ,  and  by  William 
Palmer,  a  learned  scholar  who  cooperated  with  the  promoters 

was  published  in  1864.  It  was  recast  and  printed  in  1865,  as  A  History  of 
my  Religions  Opinions.  The  editions  after  the  first  introduced  some  changes, 
examples  of  which  are  given  in  E.  A.  Abbott’s  The  Anglican  Career  of  Car¬ 
dinal  Newman  (1892),  Vol.  II.  c.  vii.  Church’s  The  Oxford  Movement , 
Twelve  Years,  1833-1845  (1891),  is  a  sympathetic  but  candid  narrative. 
The  Life  of  Edward  Bouverie  Pusey,  was  begun  by  Liddon  and  was  com¬ 
pleted  and  edited  by  Johnston  and  Wilson,  in  4  vols.  (1893-95).  Other  impor¬ 
tant  books  bearing  on  the  Oxford  Movement  are  the  Remains  of  Hurrell 
Froude;  the  Letters  of  Newman  while  in  the  Anglican  Church;  the  Reminis- 
cences  of  T.  Mozley ;  the  Letters  of  James  B.  Mozley;  the  Contributions,  etc., 
of  Newman’s  younger  brother,  F.  W.  Newman  (written  in  advanced  age, 
but  of  some  value  respecting  J.  H.  Newman’s  early  days) ;  E.  A.  Abbott’s 
work,  referred  to  above,  together  with  his  earlier  Philo?nythus  (1891),  both 
of  which  are  adverse  in  tone,  but  the  first-named  especially  of  value  as  a  care¬ 
ful  critical  study;  the  Autobiography  of  Mark  Pattison  (somewhat  cynical, 
as  by  one  who  looks  back  on  his  discipleship  as  a  period  of  delusion).  The 
Memoirs  of  Archbishop  Tait,  of  Dean  Stanley,  of  William  George  Ward,  of 
Mark  Pattison,  the  Autobiography  of  Isaac  Williams,  are  among  the  numerous 
publications  which  throw  almost  an  excess  of  light  on  the  general  subject. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


453 


of  the  Movement  at  the  beginning,  before  Romanist  tendencies 
repelled  him,  and  whose  work  on  the  Church  is  one  of  the  most 
erudite  and  solid  productions  emanating  from  the  High  Church 
theologians.  “  Bulwarks  ”  of  the  English  Church,  like  the  Test 
and  Corporation  Acts,  had  been  repealed  in  1828.  Parliament 
opened  its  doors  to  the  admission  of  Romanists  and  Dissenters. 
The  democratic  principle  seemed  on  the  road  to  a  triumph  which 
would  strip  the  Anglican  Church  of  whatever  independence  had 
been  left  to  it  by  former  political  encroachments.  In  the  progress 
of  political  reform  ten  of  the  Irish  bishoprics  had  been  effaced. 
Lord  Grey  had  met  the  spirit  of  resistance  to  liberal  measures  in 
an  uncompromising  spirit,  warning  the  bishops  in  England  to  set 
their  house  in  order.  It  is  undoubtedly  true  that  the  power  of 
ecclesiastical  defence  against  innovation  under  the  banner  of  lib¬ 
eralism,  seemed  feeble.  The  Evangelical  party  had  somewhat 
degenerated  in  character.  It  could  not  be  counted  upon  to  sup¬ 
port  measures  at  variance  with  Low  Church  principles.  The 
High  Church,  not  inaptly  characterized  as  “  High  and  Dry,”  had 
in  it  good  and  scholarly  men,  whose  temper,  however,  was  not 
adapted  to  conflict.  In  it,  likewise,  among  the  clergy,  there  was 
a  worldly,  self-seeking  class,  pervaded  by  a  spirit  of  insular  Angli¬ 
canism,  in  distinction  from  what  may  be  called  a  catholic  con¬ 
sciousness.  Its  supporters  were,  for  the  most  part,  inert. 

The  Oxford  Movement  was  essentially  a  revival  of  the  Anglo- 
Catholicism  of  the  days  of  Andrews  and  Thorndike.  Hooker  was 
revered,  and  there  was  a  disposition  to  seek  shelter  behind  his 
shield ;  but  Hooker  cannot  fairly  be  counted  among  the  doctors 
of  this  school.  Other  influences,  as  Newman  has  pointed  out, 
conjoined  to  foster  the  theological  tendency  now  awakened  to  a 
new  life.  Such  was  the  effect  of  the  writings  of  Walter  Scott, 
which  lent  a  charm  to  mediaevalism.  Such,  in  a  different  way, 
was  the  impression  made  by  the  poetry  of  Wordsworth.  There 
was  no  purpose  to  aid  the  cause  of  the  Church  of  Rome.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  political  concessions  to  Rome  in  relation  to  Ire¬ 
land  formed  one  of  the  grounds  of  complaint.  The  Movement 
was  a  rally  against  Erastianism.  It  was  an  uprising,  on  the  part  of 
a  few  religious  and  highly  gifted  men,  in  behalf  of  that  conserva¬ 
tive,  patristic,  sacramental  form  of  Anglican  piety  and  theology,  of 
which  Laud  was  the  precursor  and  Andrews  the  typical  repre¬ 
sentative,  which  had  been  cherished  among  the  non-jurors,  but 


454 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


had  undergone  a  long,  if  not  a  total,  eclipse,  at  least  as  to  some 
of  its  distinguishing  features.  The  ideas  and  intentions  of  the 
authors  of  the  Movement  are  presented  in  the  document  that  was 
adopted  at  a  meeting  held  at  the  house  of  Rev.  Hugh  James  Rose, 
one  of  the  most  eminent  High  Church  divines  of  the  day.1  It  was 
resolved  “  to  maintain  inviolate  the  doctrines,  the  services,  and 
the  discipline  of  the  Church,”  “  the  primitive  practice  in  religious 
offices,”  the  Apostolical  prerogatives  and  commission  of  the  three 
orders  in  the  ministry.  Dangers  to  the  Establishment  was  a  topic 
waived  for  the  time  in  view  of  graver  perils.  In  some  minds, 
especially  in  the  case  of  Keble,  the  liking  to  the  Establishment 
had  become  chilled,  owing  to  disgust  at  the  expansion  of  secular 
control.  Preparatory  to  the  meeting  with  Mr.  Rose,  Newman 
had  drawn  up  a  programme,  which  was  published  by  Mr.  Perceval. 
It  is  more  full  and  specific  than  the  paper  (composed  mainly  by 
Palmer)  which  it  was  decided  to  adopt.  It  comprises  four  heads  : 
i.  The  only  way  of  life  is  the  partaking  of  the  body  and  blood  of 
Christ.  2.  The  expressly  authorized  means  is  the  sacrament. 
3.  The  expressly  authorized  security  for  the  continuance  and  due 
administration  of  the  sacrament  is  the  apostolical  commission  of 
bishops.  4.  In  view  of  the  danger,  under  present  circumstances, 
that  these  things  will  be  slighted  and  practically  disowned,  several 
pledges  are  proposed:  (1)  to  be  on  the  watch  for  opportunities 
to  inculcate  them ;  (2  and  3)  to  circulate  books  and  tracts  to  the 
same  end  ;  (4)  to  endeavor  to  secure  the  revival  among  Church¬ 
men  of  daily  common  prayer,  and  more  frequent  partaking  of 
the  Lord’s  Supper;  (5)  to  resist  unauthorized  alterations  of  the 
Liturgy;  (6)  to  diffuse  accounts  of  points  in  discipline  and  wor¬ 
ship  “most  likely  to  be  undervalued  or  misunderstood.”  The 
character  of  this  statement  maybe  summed  up  in  one  word, — 
Sacramentalism.  It  is  Apostolical  Succession,  associated  with  the 
efficacy  of  the  Eucharist,  and  the  preservation  of  the  Prayer  Book 
from  being  robbed  of  phraseology  which  was  thought  to  inculcate 
the  views  taken  of  sacramental  grace  ;  for  this  is  the  motive  of  the 
pledge  relative  to  the  Liturgy.  Other  particulars  of  doctrine  were 
subsequently  contended  for.  One  was  the  authority  of  Tradition, 
in  connection  with  Scripture,  as  handing  down  the  teaching  of  the 
Apostles.  The  authority  of  the  undivided  Church,  prior  to  the 
separation  of  the  East  from  the  West,  was  maintained  by  Pusey  in 

1  Palmer,  ATarrative  of  Events,  etc.  (1883),  p.  104. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


455 


his  Eirenicon  and  in  various  earlier  writings  by  him,  and  by  the 
party  generally.  It  was  insisted  that  if  justification  is  by  faith, 
judgment  is  by  works.  For  other  practices,  such  as  the  adoration 
of  Christ  in  the  Sacrament,  invocation,  prayers  of  a  certain  kind 
for  the  dead,  —  practices  generally  supposed  to  belong  distinctively 
to  Romanism,  —  authority  was  diligently  sought,  and  not  without  a 
degree  of  success,  in  earlier  doctors  of  the  Anglo-Catholic  school. 
The  attitude  of  the  Movement  in  relation  to  the  Reformers  was 
necessarily  that  of  only  partial  sympathy,  which  might  easily  lapse 
into  antipathy.  Not  only  were  the  Oxford  leaders  strangers  to 
that  unenlightened  hostility  to  the  Church  of  Rome,  which  it  has 
commonly  been  easy  to  kindle  into  a  flame  ;  they  were  naturally 
prompted,  both  by  their  own  predilections  and  by  their  desire  to 
infuse  into  the  current  Protestantism  phases  of  opinion  common 
to  themselves  and  to  the  Roman  Church,  virtually  to  take  sides  on 
many  points  with  the  Romanists.  To  exhibit  the  Church  of  Eng¬ 
land  as  one  branch  of  the  Church  Catholic,  the  Church  of  Rome 
being  a  coordinate  branch ;  to  maintain  that  for  Anglicans  there 
is  a  seat  of  authority  in  the  Church  Visible,  the  Church  of  the 
first  centuries,  and  a  secure  possession  of  sacramental  grace 
through  an  Apostolic  priesthood ;  in  short,  to  assert  the  reality  of 
a  satisfactory  via  media  between  Protestantism  as  ordinarily  under¬ 
stood  and  Rome  —  such  was  the  task  undertaken.  The  Declara¬ 
tion,  in  the  moderate  shape  in  which  it  was  cast  at  the  meeting 
with  Mr.  Rose,  received  the  signatures  of  seven  thousand  of  the 
clergy.  In  a  modified  form  it  was  signed  by  230,000  heads  of 
families.  The  somewhat  informal  propaganda  which  had  been 
started  at  that  conference  bore  its  fruit  in  the  Tracts  for  the 
Times;  these  gave  to  the  party  the  nickname  of  “  Tractarians.” 
Subsequently  they  were  popularly  styled  “  Puseyites.”  Several  of 
the  first  tracts  in  the  series  were  composed  by  Newman.  The 
doctrine  on  which  he  specially  insisted  was  that  of  Apostolic  Suc¬ 
cession.  In  the  earliest  of  them  presbyters  and  deacons  are 
addressed.  It  is  said  :  “  I  fear  we  have  neglected  the  real  ground 
on  which  our  authority  is  built  —  “  our  Apostolical  Descent.” 
The  clergy  are  exhorted  to  exalt  the  bishops  “  as  representatives 
of  the  Apostles,”  and  to  magnify  their  own  office  “  as  being 
ordained  by  them.”1  In  the  preface  to  the  first  volume  of  the 
Tracts ,  which  comprises  forty-six,  there  is  the  same  train  of  re- 


1  Quoted  in  Church,  pp.  101,  103. 


456 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


mark.  It  is  said  that  “  Sacraments,  not  preaching,  are  the  sources 
of  divine  grace.”  1  In  1835  three  elaborate  tracts  in  a  series  (67, 
68,  69)  on  “  Baptism,”  were  contributed  by  Pusey.  They  inculcate 
the  doctrine  of  Baptismal  Regeneration,  and  the  imparting  by  it 
of  spiritual  life.  Baptism,  it  is  taught,  washes  away  all  guilt.  But 
sins,  save  venial  faults,  committed  afterwards,  could  never  in  this 
life  be  fully  pardoned.  There  might  be  an  admission  to  a  lower 
state  of  divine  favor.  But,  as  Newman  phrases  it  in  his  explana¬ 
tion  of  the  doctrine  of  this  Tract,  there  is  nothing  more  “  than  the 
suspension  of  our  sins  over  our  heads”  until  the  Last  Judgment. 
The  contrast  between  Luther’s  idea  of  baptism,  as  being,  through 
the  recollection  of  it,  a  source  of  comfort  to  the  distressed  peni¬ 
tent  ever  afterwards,  and  Pusey’s  doctrine  is  absolute.  By  this 
essay  space  is  really  cleared  for  a  resort  to  Confession,  to  Penance, 
and  Absolution,  and  for  a  new  conception  of  the  import  and  value 
of  the  Eucharist.  Like  most  of  the  author’s  writings,  it  is  thickly 
strewn  with  quotations  from  the  Fathers.  In  1836  Dr.  Hampden 
was  appointed  Regius  Professor  of  Divinity.  This  appointment 
called  out  a  storm  of  opposition,  in  which  Pusey  and  his  friends 
were  joined  by  a  large  body  of  conservative  Churchmen  in  the 
University,  who  were  not  of  their  party.  This  opposition  was 
based  principally  on  Hampden’s  Bampton  Lectures  for  1832,  on 
“The  Scholastic  Philosophy  in  Relation  to  Christianity.”  It  is 
conceded  that  he  was  in  truth  “  unexceptionably,  even  rigidly, 
orthodox  in  his  acceptance  of  Church  doctrine  and  Church 
creeds.” 2  He  had  even  defended  the  Athanasian  creed.  His 
offence  lay  in  his  drawing  a  distinction  between  the  facts  of 
Scripture,  the  doctrines  as  there  expressed,  and  the  human  infer¬ 
ences  deduced  from  them,  which  he  did  not  consider  that  the 
“  immemorial  judgment  of  the  Church  ”  necessarily  bound  us  to 
accept.  His  book  was  accused  of  a  rationalistic  drift.  A  personal 
element  mingled  in  the  strife,  and  consequent  bitterness.  Dr. 
Arnold’s  spirit  was  aflame  at  what  he  considered  a  cruel  persecu¬ 
tion,  and  he  poured  out  his  hot  indignation  in  the  article  in  the 
Edinburgh  Review  on  “  The  Oxford  Malignants.”  In  the  same 
year  (1836),  the  Library  of  the  Fathers ,  prior  to  the  division  of 
the  East  and  West,  under  the  editorship  of  Pusey,  Keble,  and 
Newman,  was  announced.  Its  translations,  introductions,  and 
notes  were  to  exhibit  from  the  original  sources  the  genuine 

1  Quoted  in  Church,  p.  108.  2  Church,  p.  144. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


457 

Catholic  theology,  before  the  errors  of  Romanism  or  of  Protes¬ 
tantism  had  a  being. 

For  a  series  of  years,  the  Movement  made  rapid  progress.  It 
was  in  everybody’s  thoughts  and  speech  at  Oxford,  and  the  fer¬ 
ment  excited  there  spread  abroad.  The  preaching  of  Newman 
and  his  personal  fascination  were  the  most  potent  agency  in 
exciting  attention  and  winning  adherents.  His  influence  for  a 
time  at  Oxford  was  something  almost  unprecedented.  It  was  in 
truth  a  powerful  influence  which  cast  a  spell  over  so  many  persons 
of  high  promise.  It  was  felt  by  some,  as  Mark  Pattison  and  James 
Anthony  Froude,  who  in  the  reaction  from  it  lapsed  into  skepti¬ 
cism.  It  entered  as  a  disturbing  force  for  a  while  into  the  minds 
of  devoted  admirers  of  Arnold,  such  as  Arthur  Clough,  and  even 
in  a  perceptible  degree  impressed  Arthur  Stanley.  But  the  charge 
made  from  the  beginning  against  the  fomenters  of  the  Movement, 
that  it  was  really  if  not  consciously  Romanist  in  its  character,  — 
some  even  denouncing  it  as  a  treasonable  conspiracy  to  betray 
the  English  Church,  —  was  conceived  by  an  increasing  number  to 
be  sustained  by  the  course  of  events.  Injudicious  tracts  were 
published,  —  notably  the  tract  on  “  Reserve,”  by  Isaac  Williams, 
which  taught  that  religious  beliefs,  from  prudential  motives,  may 
be  expressed  only  in  part,  and  may  be  veiled  until  the  fitting 
moment  for  announcing  them  arrives.  It  was  the  doctrine  of 
“  economy,”  of  the  “  tact  and  management  ”  rightly  to  be  em¬ 
ployed  in  the  inculcation  of  truth.  Aside  from  circumstances  of 
this  kind,  among  the  followers  of  Newman  there  were  able  men 
whose  drift  was  from  the  beginning  Romewards,  and  who  became 
conscious  of  it  sooner  than  Newman  was  distinctly  aware  of  such 
a  drift  in  himself.1  Perplexities  that  operated  to  obstruct  his 
progress  in  that  direction  retarded  them  in  a  less  degree.  Francis 
Faber  and  William  George  Ward  belonged  to  this  section.  But  it 
was  the  issue,  early  in  1841,  of  the  tract  No.  90,  from  the  pen  of 
Newman,  that  caused  the  storm  of  disapproval  to  break  out  in  the 
English  Church  from  Anti-Romanists  of  every  shade.  The  design 
of  the  tract  was  to  show  that  the  language  of  the  Thirty-nine 
Articles  admits  of  a  “  Catholic  ”  interpretation,  and  is  designed  in 
some  cases  to  oppose  dogmas  of  Rome,  but  more  often  abuses 
connected  with  them,  but  not  taken  up  into  the  Roman  system. 
Its  intent  was  to  prove  that  an  Anglo-Catholic  need  not  desert 


1  See  Church,  p.  208. 


458 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


the  Church  of  England,  although  he  might  in  certain  instances 
condemn  Papal  doctrine.  It  is  an  extremely  ingenious  essay.  It 
reads,  however,  more  like  the  plea  of  a  skilful  advocate,  than  like 
the  opinion  of  a  fair-minded  judge.  This  is  substantially  admitted 
by  Dean  Church,  so  far  as  the  actual  impression  made  by  it  is  con¬ 
cerned.  “  Some  of  the  interpretations,”  says  Church,  “  undoubt¬ 
edly  seemed  far-fetched  and  artificial.”1  There  were  numerous 
readers  of  tract  No.  90  who  felt  it  to  be  an  example  of  immoral 
sophistry.  Especially  offensive  to  Arnold  was  the  attempt  to  ex¬ 
plain  away  the  real  purport  of  the  XXIst  Article,  which  declares 
that  General  Councils  “  may  err,  and  sometimes  have  erred.”  An 
example  equally  open  to  censure  is  the  comments  on  the  XXVIIIth 
Article,  in  which  transubstantiation  is  denied,  and  on  the  explana¬ 
tion  appended  to  the  Communion  Service  that  the  “  natural  body 
and  blood  ”  of  Christ  are  “  in  heaven  and  not  here."  Resort  is 
had  to  a  speculation  on  the  nature  of  locality,  in  which  it  is  emp¬ 
tied  of  the  meaning  commonly  attached  to  it.  This  is  well  styled 
by  the  author  himself  a  “  specious  defence,”  the  validity  of  which 
is  not  absolutely  asserted.  It  is  remarkable  how  Newman  leans 
upon  the  Homilies  for  the  support  of  his  interpretations  of  the 
Articles.  The  XXXVth  Article  says  of  the  Homilies  that  they 
“  contain  a  godly  and  wholesome  doctrine.”  Their  popular  style 
and  patristic  phraseology  easily  lend  themselves  to  this  use.  He 
dismisses  their  repeated  designation  of  the  “  Bishop  or  the  Church 
of  Rome  ”  as  Antichrist,  on  the  ground  that  the  statement  does 
not  bear  on  doctrine.2 

At  this  time  Newman  himself  was  not  without  misgivings 
respecting  the  title  of  the  Anglican  Church  to  the  character  of 
“  catholicity.”  He  was  in  a  measure  debating  with  himself.  He 
had  grown  to  believe  that  a  portion  of  the  arguments  which  he  had 
used  against  Rome  were  unsound.  This  inward  questioning  had 
commenced  several  years  earlier.  The  drawing  towards  Rome 
was  not  a  little  due  to  the  influence  of  Hurrell  Froude,  who  was 
a  medisevalist  in  all  his  tendencies.  In  1834  Froude  writes  to  a 
correspondent  that  it  is  no  matter  where  the  pulpit  is  placed,  if  it 
do  not  “  stand  in  the  light  of  the  Altar,  which  is  more  sacred  than 
the  Holy  of  Holies  in  the  Jewish  Temple.” 3  From  Froude,  New- 

1  p.  248.  2  Tract  90,  p.  33. 

3  Quoted  by  E.  A.  Abbott,  The  Anglican  Career  of  Cardinal  Newman, 
Vol.  I.  p.  166. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


459 


man  says  that  he  derived  his  admiration  for  Rome,  his  dislike  of 
the  Reformation,  devotion  to  the  Blessed  Virgin,  and  belief  in  the 
Real  Presence.1  This  is  a  large  debt,  although  its  items  are  not 
exhaustively  recounted.  Newman’s  memory  was  haunted  by  the 
sounding  phrase  of  Augustine  :  “Securus  judicat  orbis  terrarum.” 
His  faith  in  Anglicanism  as  a  via  media  was  not  subverted,  but 
was  felt  to  be  less  secure.  It  was  no  longer  a  tranquil  faith.2 
The  severe  handling  of  the  tract  by  the  dignitaries  of  the  Univer¬ 
sity  and  the  Church  could  not  fail  to  strengthen  the  nascent  sense 
of  alienation  from  a  communion  which  apparently  had  no  shelter 
under  its  roof  for  such  as  he.  For  several  years  after  the  issue  of 
the  famous  tract,  he  gradually  withdrew  from  public  activity  and 
social  intimacies,  and  lived,  with  a  few  disciples,  in  retirement  in 
the  immediate  vicinity  of  Oxford,3  much  absorbed  in  the  reflec¬ 
tions  and  inward  struggles  through  which  he  was  making  his  way 
to  the  goal  that  was  finally  reached  in  1845,  when  he  professed 
conversion  and  was  received  into  the  Roman  Catholic  Church.  In 
this  year  he  was  engaged  in  composing  his  essay  on  “  Development.” 
It  exhibits  the  process  of  thought  which  yielded  a  solvent  for  the 
difficulties  he  had  felt,  arising  from  the  obvious  differences  between 
the  primitive  Apostolic  Church,  and  the  Latin  Church  as  it  now  is. 

The  effect  of  this  event  was  like  that  of  an  earthquake.  Al¬ 
though  it  was  not  sudden  or  wholly  unexpected,  it  spread  con¬ 
sternation  for  the  moment  among  the  adherents  of  the  Movement. 
Beyond  their  ranks,  it  seemed  to  confirm  the  worst  suspicions  that 
had  been  entertained  respecting  Newman’s  sincerity  in  his  pro¬ 
fessed  loyalty  to  the  Church  of  England  and  in  his  opposition  to 
Romanism.  This  mistrust  derived  support  from  the  avowals  of 
such  as  Ward,  the  author  of  the  Ideal  of  a  Christian  Church , 
whose  secession  preceded  that  of  Newman,  and  who,  with  a 

1  Quoted  by  E.  A.  Abbott,  The  Anglican  Career  of  Cardinal  ATewtnan , 
Vol.  I.  p.  137.  The  whole  chapter  (VII.)  is  instructive. 

2  In  a  letter  to  J.  B.  Mozley  (Nov.  24,  1843),  he  saYs  that  in  1839,  in  the 
study  of  the  Monophysite  and  Donatist  controversies,  the  feeling  “  came 
strongly  upon  ”  him  that  Anglicans  were  external  to  the  Catholic  Church. 
He  was  slow  in  giving  way  to  this  feeling.  See  Newman’s  Letters  and  Cor¬ 
respondence ,  Vol.  II.  p.  384. 

3  J.  B.  Mozley  writes  at  this  time :  “  With  respect  to  J.  H.  N.,  all  I  know 
about  him  is  he  has  been  regularly  down  about  things  for  the  last  year  or  two, 
and  that  he  has  expressed  doubts  about  the  catholicity  of  the  English  Church.” 
Letters  of  Rev.  f.  B.  Mozley ,  D.D.,  p.  157. 


460 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


blunt,  but  as  it  seemed  to  many,  an  almost  shameless,  honesty, 
avowed  that  he  was  delaying  his  desertion  to  Rome  in  order  to 
carry  others  along  into  the  same  camp.  The  psychological  inter¬ 
est,  in  connection  with  the  many  problems,  connected  with  New¬ 
man’s  career  and  the  catastrophe  by  which  he  was  lost  to  the 
English  Church,  have  naturally  given  rise  to  a  world  of  com¬ 
ment  and  discussion.  The  charge  of  conscious  dishonesty  may 
be  at  once  dismissed.  Whatever  fluctuation  in  his  expressions 
may  be  discerned  in  the  interval  between  about  1839  and 
1845,  they  are  not  more  remarkable  than  like  phenomena  in 
the  experience  of  Luther  during  several  years  after  the  posting 
of  his  Theses,  when  he  was  moving  in  a  direction  opposite  to  that 
taken  by  Newman.  Thirlwall,  perhaps  the  ablest  man  on  the 
bench  of  English  bishops  at  that  time,  —  who,  however,  did  not 
know  Newman  personally,  —  expresses  the  opinion  of  many  when 
he  says  “  that  his  mind  was  essentially  skeptical  and  sophistical  ” 
.  .  .  without  “  the  power  of  taking  firm  hold  on  either  speculative 
or  historical  truth.  Yet  his  craving  for  truth  was  strong  in  pro¬ 
portion  to  the  purity  of  his  life  and  conscience.  He  felt  that  he 
was  naturally  unable  to  satisfy  this  craving  by  any  mental  opera¬ 
tions  of  his  own,  and  that  if  he  was  to  depend  on  his  own  ability 
to  arrive  at  any  settled  conclusion,  he  should  be  forever  floating 
in  a  sea  of  doubt ;  therefore  he  was  irresistibly  impelled  to  take 
refuge  under  the  wings  of  an  infallible  authority.  .  .  .  He  bowed 
to  an  image  which  he  had  first  set  up.  There  was  at  once  his 
strength  and  his  weakness.  He  could  deceive  himself  and  could 
not  help  letting  himself  be  deceived.”  1  Archbishop  Tait  writes 
thus:  “I  have  always  regarded  Newman  as  having  a  strange 
duality  of  mind.  On  the  one  side  is  a  wonderfully  strong  and 
subtle  reasoning  faculty,  on  the  other  a  blind  faith,  raised  almost 
entirely  by  his  emotions.  It  seems  to  me  that  in  all  matters  of 
belief  he  first  acts  on  his  emotions  and  then  he  brings  the  subtlety 
of  his  reason  to  bear  until  he  has  ingeniously  persuaded  himself 
that  he  is  logically  right.  The  result  is  a  condition  in  which  he 
is  practically  unable  to  distinguish  truth  from  falsehood.”  2  R.  H. 
Hutton,  in  his  appreciative  essay  on  Newman,  refers  to  “the 
imaginative  power  which  he  shows  in  getting  over  religious  objec- 

1  Letters  of  Thirhvall  (1867),  pp.  260,  261.  Compare  the  Letter  on  pp.  268, 
269,  which  speaks  of  Newman’s  “  utter  want  of  historical  tact  and  judgment.” 

2  Benham’s  Life  of  Tait,  Vol.  I.  p.  89. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


461 


tions  to  his  faith.” 1  In  a  memorable  passage  of  the  Apologia, 
Newman  depicts  with  graphic  eloquence  the  confused  scene  of 
human  life  and  history,  implying  an  aboriginal  catastrophe  hap¬ 
pening  to  the  race.2  He  dwells,  also,  on  the  restless  character  of 
the  human  intellect,  the  impossibility  of  curbing  it  in  its  wayward, 
wild  excursions.  Were  it  not  for  the  conscience  and  heart,  he 
would  be  an  atheist,  or  pantheist,  or  polytheist.  On  the  supposi¬ 
tion  that  God  wills  to  interfere  for  the  rescue  of  mankind,  for 
retaining  in  the  world  a  knowledge  of  Himself,  there  is  no  im¬ 
probability  in  supposing  that  He  would  introduce  a  power  into  the 
world  “  invested  with  the  prerogative  of  infallibility  in  religious 
matters.”  3  This  passage  brings  out  that  assumption  of  the  proba¬ 
bility  of  an  infallible  Church,  as  the  only  salvation  from  intellectual 
as  well  as  moral  anarchy,  which  underlies  Newman’s  entire  career. 
The  ark  of  safety  in  the  flood  is  an  ecclesia  docens.  Failing  to 
find  the  criteria  of  such  a  Church,  of  such  a  Seat  of  Authority, 
within  the  pale  of  Anglicanism,  he  found  it  in  that  imperial,  en¬ 
during,  world-wide  Institution  having  its  centre  in  Rome.  Diffi¬ 
culties,  historical  or  doctrinal  in  its  structure,  were  disposed  of 
by  that  marvellous  sublety  so  evident  in  all  his  writings.  They 
vanished  to  his  eye,  as  the  spots  on  the  disk  of  the  sun  disappear 
in  the  blaze  of  its  radiance.  There  is  no  evidence  that  he  was 
ever  skeptical  respecting  the  fundamental  truths  of  natural  or  re¬ 
vealed  religion.  The  roots  of  his  personal  faith  were  in  his  moral 
nature.  But  a  subtlety  so  wonderful  might  be  a  means  of  mis¬ 
leading  its  possessor  as  well  as  others.  There  was  a  snare  in  this 
rare  power  of  delicate  discrimination  and  exquisite  expression. 
A  mind  of  another  cast,  while  assenting  to  the  vivid  description 
of  the  moral  situation  of  the  race  and  the  perils  of  the  intellect, 
which  the  passage  in  the  Apologia  presents,  may  be  moved  to 
assume  as  probable  a  divine  guidance  of  men  more  immediate 
than  through  the  instrumentality  of  a  human  tribunal  to  sit  in 
judgment  on  the  operations  of  their  minds.  There  are  threads 
of  unity  running  through  the  successive  stages  of  Newman’s  career. 
One  he  professed  to  point  out,  when,  on  the  occasion  of  receiving 
the  dignity  of  Cardinal,  he  said  that  for  thirty,  forty,  fifty  years  he 
had  been  contending  against  liberalism  —  the  idea  “  that  there 
is  no  positive  truth  in  religion,  but  that  one  creed  is  as  good  as 

1  Hutton,  Modern  Guides  of  English  Thought  in  Matters  of  Faith,  p.  50. 

2  p.  266  sq.  3  Apologia,  p.  266  sq. 


462 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


another.”  There  are  two  additional  facts  to  be  taken  into  the 
account  if  one  would  explain  the  career  of  Newman.  The  one 
is  the  imaginative  habit,  which  even  in  boyhood  led  him  some¬ 
times  to  indulge  the  thought  that  life  is  a  dream  and  the  world 
unreal,  the  idea  of  its  reality  being  a  deception  wrought  by  the 
angels.  Thirlwall,  in  a  letter  previously  quoted,  ascribes  to  him 
in  one  respect  the  credulity  of  a  “  born  Papist,”  and  illustrates 
his  meaning  by  referring  to  a  conception  of  Newman  that  the 
work  of  the  physical  universe,  from  “  planetary  and  sidereal  rota¬ 
tion  ”  to  the  “  dislocations  of  the  molecules  of  an  atom,”  is  carried 
forward  by  the  agency  of  personal  beings.  One  may  conjecture 
that  there  is  some  bond  of  connection  between  his  youthful  fancy 
that  matter  is  an  illusion  with  such  a  strange  conception.  At 
least  we  are  aided  in  accounting  for  his  belief  that  “  material  phe¬ 
nomena  are  both  the  types  and  the  instruments  of  things  unseen.”  1 
The  other  fact  is  the  predominant  quality  of  his  religious  experi¬ 
ence  as  discovered  in  his  sermons  in  all  of  the  Anglican  period. 
It  is  the  sense  of  the  holiness  and  righteousness  of  God  that 
breathes  through  these  discourses.  It  is  a  religion  in  which  fear 
is  a  pervasive  element.  The  tenderness  and  love  manifested  in 
the  Gospel  are  by  no  means  proportionately  emphasized.  It  is 
worthy  of  notice  that  for  so  great  a  theologian  he  was  restricted, 
not  in  the  amount,  but  in  the  range,  of  his  reading.  This  is  true 
in  relation  to  the  department  of  philosophy.  He  passes  by  in 
silence  the  German  philosophers  and  the  theologians  of  the  pres¬ 
ent  century.  “  How  different,”  remarked  Stanley,  “  the  fortunes 
of  England  might  have  been  if  Newman  had  been  able  to  read 
German  !  ” 2  It  was  not  until  1884  that  he  read  Kant.  Then  he 
expressed  his  sympathy  with  Kant’s  making  our  moral  nature  the 
basis  of  religious  beliefs. 

After  the  secession  of  Newman,  Pusey  was  the  recognized 
leader  of  the  party.  In  his  youthful  days,  having,  as  a  student 
in  Germany,  had  an  acquaintance  with  Tholuck  and  Ewald,  he 
had  replied  to  Rose’s  strictures  on  the  state  of  German  theology, 
and  had  brought  forward  suggestions  on  Inspiration  more  free 
than  the  traditional  view  permitted.  But  these  afterwards  were 
spoken  of  by  him  with  regret.  This  supposed  indiscretion  was 
fully  atoned  for  during  the  rest  of  his  life  by  a  rigorous  orthodoxy 

1  The  words  are  R.  H.  Hutton’s  ( Modern  Guides ,  etc.),  p.  73. 

2  Quoted  in  Mark  Tattison’s  Memoirs,  p.  210. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


463 


on  the  critical  questions,  as  is  evinced  in  his  commentaries  on 
Jonah  and  Daniel.  His  confidence  in  his  own  position  and  in 
the  via  media  was  tranquil.  His  piety  was  deep  and  sincere. 
While  he  lacks  the  imagination  and  power  of  luminous  exposition 
which  belong  to  Newman,  he  was  a  miracle  of  industry,  his  acqui¬ 
sitions  of  learning  were  large,  and  his  mind  was  straightforward 
in  its  operations.  James  Mozley  said  of  him  that  he  had  no  idea 
of  “economy,” —  that  is,  of  prudential  reserve  in  the  expression 
of  beliefs.1  The  editors  of  Liddon’s  biography  of  Pusey  say  of 
him  that  from  1845  to  he  was  engaged  in  convincing  people 
that  there  was  a  firm  foothold  for  Tractarians  in  the  English 
Church,  and  in  vindicating  “  the  Anglican  claim  to  the  doctrine 
of  Regeneration,  of  Absolution,  of  the  Real  Presence,  of  the 
Eucharistic  Sacrifice,  and  other  important  truths.”2 

In  1843  Pusey  preached  a  sermon  on  the  “  Eucharist  as  a 
Comfort  to  the  Penitent.”  It  was  meant  as  a  counterpart  —  an  anti¬ 
dote,  his  critics  might  say  —  to  his  disheartening  sermon  on  “  Bap¬ 
tism.”  It  was  fervid  in  style,  abounds  in  citations  from  the  Fathers, 
and  in  the  printed  form  presented  in  the  Appendix  corroborative 
extracts  from  the  old  English  divines.3  Great  hostility  was 
awakened  by  this  discourse,  and  its  author  was  suspended  for  two 
years  from  preaching  within  the  precincts  of  the  University.  In 
the  outcry  against  the  sermon,  wrong  interpretations  were  fastened 
upon  it.  The  objections  to  it  from  the  point  of  view  of  adverse, 
but  intelligent,  critics,  are  summarized  in  a  letter  of  Bishop 
Wilberforce  written  at  the  time.  He  thinks  that  its  great  evil  is 
a  sort  of  “  misty  exaggeration  ”  of  the  truth,  which  is  adapted  to 
breed  errors  in  others.  He  censures  its  un-Anglican  tone ,  its  un¬ 
qualified  quotations  of  uncareful  expressions  from  the  Fathers  — 
such  as  “  having  on  your  very  lips  the  blood  of  Christ,”  etc.,  and, 
most  of  all,  its  connection  of  the  remission  of  sins  with  the  Eu¬ 
charist,  as  if  the  justified  man  were  not  in  a  forgiven  state,  and 
as  if  there  were  in  the  Eucharist,  the  act,  rather  than  the  seal, 
of  remission.4  The  Pauline  doctrine  of  Justification,  Wilberforce 
thought,  was  virtually  denied.  As  was ,  the  case  three  centuries 
before,  the  doctrine  of  the  Lord’s  Supper  became  once  more  in 

1  See  E.  A.  Abbott,  Vol.  I.  p.  218.  2  Life  of  Pusey,  Vol.  III.  p.  vi. 

3  These  are  reprinted  in  Pusey’s  The  Doctrine  of  the  Real  Presence,  etc. 

O855). 

4  Life  of  Bishop  Wilberforce,  Vol.  I.  pp.  230,  231. 


464 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


England  an  engrossing  theme  of  controversy.  To  get  at  the  exact 
doctrine  of  Dr.  Pusey  and  his  school  on  this  subject,  is  a  task  of 
some  difficulty.  On  the  one  hand  the  tenet  of  transubstantiation 
is  not  accepted,  because  it  is  a  mode  of  explanation  not  verified 
by  Scripture  and  not  in  the  creed  of  the  Patristic  Church.  How 
does  Pusey’s  opinion  differ  from  the  Lutheran?  The  Lutherans 
did  not  hold  that  in  the  Sacrament  the  body  of  Christ  occupies 
space.  Pusey  himself  defends  them  from  the  charge  of  teaching 
consubstantiation.1  “The  weak  point  in  the  Lutheran  system,” 
says  Pusey,  “  is  that  the  only  office  assigned  to  the  Sacrament  is 
to  kindle  faith.  .  .  .  Union  with  Christ  is  the  end  of  the  Sacra¬ 
ments  and  the  reward  of  faith  ;  faith  is  not  the  object  of  the 
Sacraments.”  Here  Pusey  fails  to  do  full  justice  to  the  Lutheran 
view.  It  embraced  under  the  term  ‘  faith  ’  union  to  Christ. 
Pusey  himself  cites  the  Apology  of  the  Augsburg  Confession  as 
teaching  a  spiritual  union  with  Christ  “  by  faith  and  sincere  love.” 
The  real  difference  from  the  Lutheran  tenet  is  another,  as  will 
soon  be  pointed  out.  Respecting  the  Calvinistic  opinion,  Pusey 
himself,  in  a  letter  to  Newman,  truly  remarks  :  “  Such  persons  as 
Laud,  Cosin,  not  to  say  Hooker,  and,  I  believe,  all  our  writers 
until  ourselves,  have  interpreted  Calvin,  etc.,  in  a  sound  sense  as 
to  the  Sacraments.”  2  But  Pusey’s  objection  to  Calvin,  so  far  as 
the  question  of  the  Reality  of  the  Presence  is  concerned,  rests 
upon  an  incorrect  interpretation  of  the  single  passage  respecting 
the  communicant  being  taken  up  to  Christ.3  Calvin,  like  Pusey, 
rejected  the  notion  of  a  corporeal  Presence  as  of  a  body,  and  of 
a  local  Presence,  in  the  strict  and  proper  sense.  Calvin  says  that 
“  Christ  presents  the  spiritual  meat  and  the  spiritual  drink  to  all. 

.  .  .  He  literally  offers  to  them  that  which  they  reject.” 4  The 
most  obvious  point  of  dissent  from  Calvin,  which  is  a  point  of 
agreement  with  the  Lutherans,  is  that  the  body  and  blood  are 
received  really,  although  not  spiritually,  by  the  unworthy,  as  well 
as  the  worthy,  communicant.  Yet  among  the  authorities  ap¬ 
pended  by  Pusey  to  his  sermon,  is  Palmer,  who  teaches  as  the 
probable  opinion  of  the  Church  that  “  Sinners  .  .  .  partake  only 

1  Doctrine  of  the  Real  Presence,  p.  32  sq. 

2  Life  of  Pusey,  Vol.  II.  p.  224. 

3  See  supra,  pp.  291,  306,  where  Calvin’s  opinion  is  explained. 

4  Inst.  IV.  xvii.  33.  “  Spiritualem  hunc  cibum  omnibus  porrigit  Christus,” 
etc.  For  other  references,  see  Muller,  Wissenschaftl.  Abhandll.  p.  424. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


465 


of  the  bread  and  wine.”  In  truth,  very  few  of  the  authorities  there 
cited  run  counter  to  this  statement.  Overall  and  Jackson  are 
among  the  exceptions.  Pusey  and  most  of  the  representatives  of 
the  Oxford  Movement  hold  to  the  physical  reception  by  the  un¬ 
worthy,  and  undertake  to  reconcile  this  opinion  with  Art.  XXIX., 
which  affirms  of  the  wicked  and  unbelieving  that  while  they  eat 
and  drink  “  the  sign  or  Sacrament  ”  of  the  Body  and  Blood  of 
Christ,  “yet  in  no  wise  are  they  partakers  of  Christ.”  1  The  main 
divergence  of  the  Oxford  School  from  the  Protestant  Reformers 
relates  to  the  effect  of  the  consecration  of  the  bread  and  wine, 
and  to  the  question  whether  the  Real  Presence  is  or  is  not  extra 
usum ,  that  is,  independent  of  the  communicant.  The  Oxford 
School  maintain  that  after  consecration  the  Presence  abides, 
unless,  as  may  be  the  case,  the  Presence  is  miraculously  with¬ 
drawn  when  the  consecrated  bread  is  eaten  by  an  animal.  How 
the  bread  and  wine  are  affected  by  the  consecrating  act  there  is 
no  attempt  to  explain.  The  simple  proposition  is  that  when  they 
are  received  the  body  and  blood  are  received.2  The  Caroline 
divines  taught  the  extra  usum?  Bishop  Cosin  asserts  this  with 
much  emphasis.4  This  is  true  also  of  Bishop  Sparrow  in  treating 
of  communion  of  the  sick.5  Both  these  bishops  were  active  in 
the  revision  of  the  Prayer  Book  at  the  Savoy  Conference  in  1661, 
when  the  rubric  was  introduced  into  the  Communion  Service, 
providing  that  what  is  left  of  the  consecrated  bread  and  wine 
shall  not  be  carried  out  of  the  church,  but  the  minister  and  other 
communicants  shall  reverently  eat  and  drink  the  same.6 

A  certain  sacrificial  character  is  attributed  by  the  Oxford  School 
to  the  Eucharist.  Here  it  is  important  to  inquire,  Is  the  Eucharist 

1  The  XXIXth  Article  was  not  printed  until  1571.  The  contention  is  that 
to  be  “  a  partaker  of  Christ  ”  means  here  to  experience  “  the  7 oholesome  oper¬ 
ation  ”  of  the  Sacrament.  So  Forbes,  Bishop  of  Brechin,  Explanation  of  the 
Thirty-nine  Articles,  p.  581.  See,  also,  Bishop  Guest’s  Articles  XXVIII. 
and  XXIX.  (by  G.  F.  Hodges,  1894). 

2  See  Forbes,  Bishop  of  Brechin,  Primary  Charge  (1857),  pp.  26-29,  an<I 
Explanation  of  the  Thirty-nine  Articles,  p.  574  sq. 

3  See  Hallam,  Const.  Hist.  c.  VIII.  (p.  272  n.  in  Am.  ed.  1847). 

4  Works,  Vol.  V.  p.  1 31. 

5  Rationale  of  the  Prayer  Book  (1684),  p.  266. 

6  See  Kempe,  Reservation  of  the  Blessed  Sacrament,  etc.  (1887)  ;  also, 
Cobb,  Kiss  of  Peace  (last  ed.).  For  clear  statements  on  this  and  other  topics 
of  divinity,  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  Oxford  School,  see  the  able  and 
learned  Digest  of  1'heology,  by  H.  R.  Percival  (1893). 

2  H 


466 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


a  purely  commemorative  sacrifice  of  the  finished  propitiation  on 
the  Cross,  or  is  it  in  itself  likewise  propitiatory?  The  answers  to 
this  question  are  not  always  lucid.  The  Bishop  of  Brechin  argues 
that,  as  the  Same  Body,  which  is  naturally  in  heaven,  is  “  supra- 
locally  and  mystically”  taken  and  received,  its  “faculty  of  impe- 
tration  ”  —  that  is,  its  intercessory  appeal  — continues,  while  yet 
there  is  no  repetition  of  the  sacrifice  of  the  Cross.1  The  twenty- 
first  of  the  Articles  affirms  that  masses  for  “  the  remission  of 
pain  or  guilt  ”  are  “  blasphemous  fables  and  dangerous  conceits.” 
Pusey,  in  a  letter  to  Bishop  Bloomfield,  states  that  he  had  termed 
the  Eucharist  a  propitiatory  sacrifice,  but  in  the  sense  that  the 
Church  in  this  act  pleads  the  efficacy  of  the  one  sacrifice.2  As 
to  adoration  of  the  Lord  in  the  Eucharist,  he  cites  with  approval 
a  saying  of  Andrews  that  wherever  Christ  is  present,  He  is  “  truly 
to  be  adored.” 3 

In  the  letter  referred  to  above,  Pusey  states  that  he  had  called 
Absolution  a  “  sacrament,”  in  the  lower  sense  of  this  word.  He 
had  taught  that  there  are  higher  forms  of  service  and  devotion  to 
which  all  are  not  called.  This  appears  to  sanction  the  Roman 
tenet  as  to  a  salvable,  and  a  higher  than  salvable,  type  of  Christian 
character.  He  defends  the  adaptation  he  had  made  of  Roman 
Catholic  books  of  devotion,  and  what  they  say  of  our  Lord’s  Five 
Wounds,  of  the  use  of  “rosaries”  (simple  forms  of  devotion), 
etc.  He  claims  English  precedents  of  a  similar  adoption  of 
revised  Roman  productions.4  It  is  evident,  not  only  from  his  writ¬ 
ings,  but  from  his  practice,  —  for  example,  from  the  disciplinary 
penances  to  which  he  subjected  himself  with  the  consent  of  Keble, 

1  Sermon,  p.  40.  For  a  clear  exposition  of  the  Anglo-Catholic  view,  see 
Blunt’s  Annotated  Prayer  Book,  p.  155. 

2  See  Life  of  Pusey,  Vol.  III.  pp.  297,  298.  For  other  explanations  by 
Pusey  of  his  teaching  on  various  topics,  which,  as  was  natural,  was  extensively 
regarded  as  encouraging  Romanism,  see  his  Correspondence  with  Bishop 
Wilberforce  in  1851.  Pusey’s  “Letters”  are  in  his  Life,  Vol.  III.  App.  to 
Chap.  XII. 

3  J.  B.  Mozley,  with  his  usual  clearness,  explains  that  without  faith  the  body 
and  blood  are  not  partaken  of,  that  the  sacrifice  of  the  Eucharist  is  purely 
commemorative,  and  that  the  worship  paid  to  Christ  is  “  not  a  worship  paid 
to  Him  as  present  under  the  form  of  the  sacramental  elements,”  but  only  “  a 
worship  paid  to  Him  upon  the  particular  opportunity  of  the  Sacrament.” 
The  body  and  blood  is  “  not  the  object  of  the  worship,  but  only  the  occasion 
of  it.”  Mozley’s  Lectures,  etc.,  pp.  208,  209,  213,  216,  217. 

4  Life  of  Pusey ,  Vol.  III.  pp.  100,  104,  107,  108. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


467 


whom  he  had  persuaded  to  act  as  confessor,  —  that  he  made  such 
an  approach  to  the  Roman  Catholic  system,  doctrinal  and  prac¬ 
tical,  as  is  certainly  not  compatible  with  the  principles  and  spirit 
of  the  Reformers.  This  disparity  is  most  apparent  in  his  doctrine 
as  to  post-baptismal  sins,  with  the  sacramental  corollaries  adhering 
to  it.  “  I  cannot  but  think,”  he  wrote  in  1845,  “  that  Rome  and 
we  are  not  irreconcilably  at  variance.”  1 

The  Anglo-Catholic  party  were  deeply  moved  by  the  unsuc¬ 
cessful  result  of  the  strenuous  efforts  made  by  them  in  1848  to 
prevent  the  induction  of  Hampden  into  the  bishopric  of  Hereford. 
They  were  still  more  exasperated  and  alarmed  by  the  refusal  of 
the  judicial  committee  of  the  Privy  Council  to  sanction  the  deci¬ 
sion  of  the  Court  of  Arches  against  Gorham,  when  the  Bishop  of 
Exeter  declined  to  institute  him  to  a  cure  within  his  jurisdiction. 
Gorham  was  charged  with  rejecting  the  doctrine  of  baptismal  regen¬ 
eration,  his  opinion  being  that  the  grace  of  the  Spirit  and  its  effect 
must  precede  the  administration  of  the  Sacrament  to  infants.  Two 
facts  in  relation  to  this  case  were  considered  to  be  in  the  highest 
measure  grievous.  One  was  the  adjudication  of  a  doctrinal  dis¬ 
pute  by  a  civil  tribunal.  The  other  was  the  sanction  supposed  to 
be  given  to  a  heretical  opinion.  Then  followed  a  new  wave  of 
secession  to  Rome,  which  carried  over  Archdeacon  Manning  and 
R.  I.  Wilberforce.  Manning,  in  a  work  on  the  “  Holy  Spirit,”  pub¬ 
lished  in  1875,  founds  his  allegiance  to  Rome  on  his  perception  of 
the  Christian  doctrine  on  this  subject.  He  came  to  see,  he  tells 
us,  that  it  is  in  the  Church,  in  the  visible  Apostolic  Organization, 
that  the  Spirit  has  His  abode. 

It  may  be  added  that  Pusey  did  not  personally  partake  in  the 
growing  zeal  for  ritualistic  innovations.  He  insisted,  however, 
that  nothing  should  be  prohibited  which  established  law  per¬ 
mitted  ;  and,  as  on  other  matters,  and  in  common  with  his  party, 
he  always  protested  against  a  policy  of  legal  restraint  against  their 
type  of  churchmanship,  while  immunity  was  conceded  to  the 
advocates  of  latitudinarian  opinions  deemed  by  him  to  be  plainly 
inconsistent  with  the  Anglican  standards. 

The  late  Henry  Parry  Liddon,  Canon  of  St.  Paul’s,  eminent  as 

1  Life  of  Pusey,  Vol.  III.  p.  45.  Pusey  was  confident  in  his  hopes  for  the 
future  of  Tractarianism.  He  says  that  “  even  the  pared  and  maimed  Prayer 
Book  of  the  Church  in  the  United  States  still  affords  it  a  home.”  Letter 
(1851),  Vol.  III.  p.  300. 


468 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


a  preacher,  was  the  author  of  a  learned  and  carefully  written  vol¬ 
ume  (of  Bampton  Lectures)  on  the  “  Divinity  of  Christ.”  A  living 
writer,  Charles  Gore,  not  departing  from  the  essential  ideas  of  the 
Oxford  School,  is  not  unwilling  to  modify  its  usual  beliefs  in  some 
respects,  and  even  to  make  room  for  opinions  characteristic  of  the 
later  Biblical  criticism.  His  work  on  the  “  Christian  Ministry,” 
although  defending  the  High  Church  theories  respecting  the 
origin  of  Episcopacy,  is  remarkable  likewise  for  its  concessions. 
For  example,  it  is  admitted  that  in  the  church  of  Corinth,  to  which 
the  Epistle  of  the  Roman  Church,  written  by  Clement,  was  sent, 
there  was  no  vacancy  in  the  bishopric,  and  no  bishopric,  in  the 
ordinary  sense,  to  be  vacant,  but  only  a  plurality  of  presbyters, 
constituting,  it  is  said,  a  hierarchy  with  the  functions  inhering  in 
the  Apostolic  Succession.1  Canon  Liddon,  commenting  on  the 
Saviour’s  “  professed  ignorance  of  the  day  of  the  last  judgment,” 
does  not  surrender  the  view  that  there  was  a  co-existence  of  igno¬ 
rance  and  knowledge.  Canon  Gore,  in  his  lectures  on  the  “  Incar¬ 
nation,”2  cautiously  and  reverently  indicates  the  belief  that  the 
“  Eternal  Son,”  to  a  certain  extent,  “  restrained  the  natural  action 
of  the  divine  being,” 3  that  there  was  a  “  refraining  from  the  exer¬ 
cise  of  what  He  possessed,”  that  “  He  was  so  truly  acting  under 
the  conditions  of  human  nature  as  Himself  to  be  ignorant.” 4 
There  is  a  guarded  admission  of  a  certain  Kenosis.  More 
noteworthy  still  are  the  observations  of  Canon  Gore  in  Lux 
Muiidi ,  on  the  subject  of  “  Inspiration.” 5  There  was  a  conscious 
inspiration  of  the  Jews  as  a  people,  although  there  were  “  special 
men,”  “  the  inspired  interpreters  of  the  divine  message  to  and  in 
the  race.”  6  Their  natural  activity  is  not  superseded  by  the  super¬ 
natural  influence.7  In  the  sacred  books  the  aim  is  not  the  discov¬ 
ery  of  science.8  In  Genesis,  the  first  traditions  of  the  race  are 
given  “from  a  special  point  of  view.”  The  inspiration  of  prophets 
is  consistent  with  certain  “  erroneous  anticipations  ”  analogous  to 
St.  Paul’s  expectation  of  the  “  second  coming  of  Christ  within  his 
own  lifetime.”  Limitations  as  to  “the  powers  and  possibilities  of 
the  divine  compassion  are  characteristic  of  the  Psalms  and  of  the 

1  p.  322  sq. 

2  “The  Incarnation  of  the  Son  of  God,”  Bampton  Lectures  for  1S91. 

3  Ibid.  p.  162.  4  Ibid.  p.  266. 

6  Lux  Mundi  (5th  ed.),  Essay  VII.  “The  Holy  Spirit  and  Inspiration.” 

6  Ibid.  p.  342.  7  Ibid.  pp.  342,  345.  8  Ibid.  p.  344. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


469 


Old  Testament  generally.”1  The  historical  record  from  Abraham 
downward  is  “  in  substance,  in  the  strict  sense,  historical,”  yet 
there  “  is  still  room  for  the  admixture  of  what,  though  marked  by 
a  spiritual  purpose,  is  yet  not  strictly  historical.”  2  Inspiration  is 
not  shut  out  if  we  admit  “  distinct  stages  in  the  growth  of  the  law 
of  worship”  —  an  “  unconscious  idealizing  of  history.”  3  It  may 
even  be  admitted  with  safety  that  the  earlier  Biblical  narratives 
prior  to  the  call  of  Abraham  are  “  of  the  nature  of  myth  in  which 
we  cannot  distinguish  the  historical  germ,  though  we  do  not  at  all 
deny  that  it  exists.”4  The  use  made  by  Christ  of  the  Old  Testa¬ 
ment  is  not  an  argument  against  concessions  of  this  kind.5  If  He 
had  “  intended  to  convey  instruction  to  us  on  critical  and  literary 
questions,  He  would  have  made  His  purpose  plainer.”6 

James  B.  Mozley  (1813-78)  was  a  theologian  of  extraordi¬ 
nary  vigor  and  independence.  He  was  long  closely  allied  with 
the  leaders  of  the  Oxford  Movement,  with  whom  he  was  per¬ 
sonally  intimate.  After  the  withdrawal  of  Newman,  by  whose 
secession  his  opinions  were  not  in  the  least  affected,  he  was  led 
to  differ  from  the  party  on  certain  important  questions,  and, 
although  always  a  High  Churchman,  to  take  up  a  position  by 
himself.  Among  his  writings  in  the  earlier  period  is  the  able,  but 
one-sided,  essay  on  Luther,  whose  depth  and  power  both  of  intel¬ 
lect  and  character  he  fails  to  appreciate.  A  similar  comment 
would  not  be  unjust  if  applied  to  his  essay  on  Dr.  Arnold.  From 
the  epoch  marked  by  the  Gorham  case,  he  disagreed  with  his 
former  associates.  He  was  so  far  an  Augustinian  as  to  consider 
it  necessary  to  formulate  the  doctrine  of  baptism  so  as  to  har¬ 
monize  it  with  the  doctrine  of  predestination.  His  treatise  On 
the  Augustinian  Doctrine  of  Predestination  (1855)  was  followed, 
in  1856,  by  his  work  on  The  Primitive  Doctrine  of  Baptismal 
Regenera tion.  In  the  later  edition  (1862)  it  appears  under  the 
title,  A  Review  of  the  Baptismal  Controversy.  The  editor  of 
the  volume  soon  to  be  noticed  says  of  him,  that  “  he  undertook 
the  task  of  reconciling  the  tradition  about  baptism  with  the  theol¬ 
ogy  of  what  is  called  Calvinism.”  He  says  that  “  Scripture  is 
silent  with  respect  to  infants  as  recipients  of  the  grace  of  bap- 

1  Lux  Mundi  (5th  ed.),  Essay  VII.  “The  Holy  Spirit  and  Inspiration,” 
P-  35°* 

2  Ibid.  pp.  351,  352.  4  Ibid.  p.  358.  c  Ibid.  p.  359. 

3  Ibid.  p.  353.  5  Ibid.  p.  358  sq. 


470 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


tism,”  that  the  Fathers  take  one  view  and  the  Reformers  another, 
and  “  that  according  to  the  rule  of  our  [the  English]  Church 
the  regeneration  of  all  infants  in  baptism  is  not  an  article  of  the 
faith.”1  “  There  is  nothing,  in  the  Gorham  judgment,  that  in¬ 
volves  a  departure  from  Anglican  principles.”  2  In  the  treatise  on 
Augustinianism,  and  in  the  posthumous  volume  of  Lectures  and 
Other  Theological  Papers  (1883),  Mozley  has  propounded,  in  his 
usual  clear  and  impressive  style,  his  philosophy  respecting  “  Myste¬ 
rious  Truths.”  This  is  applied  to  such  truths  as  Original  Sin, 
the  Trinity,  and  the  Atonement.  Such,  we  are  told,  are  truths 
“  which  agree  with  human  reason  in  a  large  and  general  way,” 3 
which  we  recognize  as  truths,  but  of  which  we  have  not  the  full 
idea  or  conception.4  Our  conception  is  real  but  indistinct. 
There  is  a  field  of  thought  where  we  are  not  shut  up  to  “  pure 
ignorance  or  pure  knowledge.”  This  is  true  of  the  “  ideas  of 
substance,  cause,  Mind  or  Spirit,  Power,  Infinity.”  Of  these  we 
have  some  idea,  but  “no  adequate  or  complete  idea.”  Now  in  the 
case  of  truths  of  this  class  we  are  not  at  liberty  to  draw  logical 
inferences,  practical  conclusions,  which  offend  the  moral  sense. 
When  moral  truth  is  contradicted  by  logic,  there  is  a  flaw  in 
the  logic ;  and  this  is  traceable  to  the  imperfect  character  of 
the  notions  which  enter  into  the  premises.  Mozley  appears  to 
sanction  the  dictum  of  Coleridge  that,  when  logic  seems  to  clash 
with  moral  intuitions,  the  superior  authority  belongs  to  conscience. 
As  to  the  truth  of  Original  Sin,  the  inference  of  the  perdition  of 
infants  is  under  this  test  excluded.  So  as  to  predestination.  It 
is  a  truth  on  which  .sound  practical  convictions  rest ;  but  there 
is  apparently  a  counter-truth.  It,  likewise,  must  not  be  ignored. 
They  meet  somewhere  in  the  region  of  mystery.  Objections  — 
such  as  that  a  truth  not  understood  cannot  be  believed — are 
grappled  with  in  this  essay  and  in  the  treatise  on  “Augustinianism.” 
They  are  asserted  to  have  their  parallel  in  certain  truths  of  science. 
Truths  at  the  bottom  of  all  religion  “  we  feel  and  reach  after 
rather  than  intellectually  apprehend.”5  Here  is  the  place  for 
faith ;  for  “  reasonable  faith  ”  does  not  require  full  intellectual 
apprehension.6  The  lesson  of  this  philosophy  is,  for  example, 
that  we  are  not  to  demand  a  middle  formula  between  predesti¬ 
nation  and  free-will,  a  compromise  in  which  neither  is  embraced, 


1  A  Review,  etc.,  p.  226. 

2  Ibid.  p.  vi. 


5  Ibid.  p.  1 14. 
0  Ibid.  p.  1 1 5. 


3  Lectures ,  p.  102. 

4  Ibid.  p.  408. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


471 


or  a  formula  in  which  one  or  the  other  is  given  up.  Rather  are 
we  to  hold  both,  with  an  interrogation  mark  or  a  minus  sign  —  if 
one  may  so  say — affixed  to  each,  whereby  practical  inferences,  un- 
scriptural  or  immoral,  are  ruled  out.  In  the  Ruling  Ideas  in  Early 
Ages ,  Mozley  exhibits  the  progressive  character  of  the  Old  Tes¬ 
tament  Revelation.  Acts  may  be  done,  and  may  be  commanded, 
which  on  a  higher  stage  of  moral  development  could  not  be  done, 
and  would  not  be  commanded,  but  which  “  are  the  highest  and 
most  noble  acts  ”  to  which  the  conceptions  of  an  age,  lower  down 
in  the  scale  of  moral  perception,  can  give  rise.  Reference  has 
already  been  made  to  Mozley’s  Lectures  on  Miracles.  Among 
his  essays  are  included  extremely  valuable  discussions  of  the 
“  Argument  of  Design  ”  and  of  “  Causation.”  In  the  first  of 
these  papers/objections  brought  against  the  doctrine  of  final 
causes  in  nature,  on  the  ground  of  evolution  as  taught  by  Dar¬ 
win,  are  met  by  an  invincible  logic. 

One  of  Mozley’s  sermons  is  on  the  Atonement.1  After  reject¬ 
ing  the  idea  that  there  is  a  satisfaction  to  justice  by  the  literal 
bearing  of  the  penalty  by  a  substitute,  he  adds  :  — 

“  There  is,  however,  undoubtedly  contained  in  the  Scriptural 
doctrine  of  the  Atonement,  a  kind,  and  a  true  kind,  of  fulfilment  of 
justice.  It  is  a  fulfilment  in  the  sense  of  appeasing  and  satisfy¬ 
ing  justice ;  appeasing  that  appetite  for  punishment  which  is  the 
characteristic  of  justice  in  relation  to  evil.  There  is  obviously  an 
appetite  for  justice  which  is  implied  in  that  very  anger  which  is 
occasioned  by  crime,  by  a  wrong  being  committed  ;  we  desire  the 
punishment  of  the  criminal  as  a  kind  of  redress,  and  his  punish¬ 
ment  undoubtedly  satisfies  a  natural  craving  of  our  mind.  But 
let  any  one  have  exposed  himself  thus  to  the  appetite  for  punish¬ 
ment  in  our  nature,  and  it  is  undoubtedly  the  case,  however  we 
may  account  for  it,  that  the  real  suffering  of  another  for  him,  of 
a  good  person  for  a  guilty  one,  will  mollify  the  appetite  for  pun¬ 
ishment,  which  was  possibly  up  to  that  time  in  full  possession  of 
our  minds  ;  and  this  kind  of  satisfaction  to  justice,  and  appeasing 
of  it,  is  involved  in  the  Scriptural  doctrine  of  the  Atonement. 
And  so,  also,  there  is  a  kind  of  substitution  involved  in  the  Script¬ 
ure  doctrine  of  the  Atonement,  and  a  true  kind ;  but  it  is  not  a 
literal,  but  a  moral  kind  of  substitution.  It  is  one  person  suffer¬ 
ing  in  behalf  of  another,  for  the  sake  of  another  :  in  that  sense 

1  University  Sermons,  p.  175  sq. 


472 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


he  takes  the  place  and  acts  in  the  stead  of  another,  he  suffers 
that  another  may  escape  suffering,  he  condemns  himself  to  a 
burden  that  another  may  be  relieved.  But  this  is  the  moral  sub¬ 
stitution  which  is  inherent  in  acts  of  love  and  labor  for  others;  it 
is  a  totally  different  thing  from  the  literal  substitution  of  one  per¬ 
son  for  another  in  punishment.  The  outspoken  witness  in  the 
human  heart,  which  has  from  the  beginning  embraced  the  doc¬ 
trine  of  the  Atonement  with  the  warmth  of  religious  affection,  has 
been,  indeed,  a  better  judge  on  the  moral  question  than  particular 
formal  schools  of  theological  philosophy.  The  atoning  act  of 
the  Son,  as  an  act  of  love  on  behalf  of  sinful  man,  appealed  to 
wonder  and  praise  :  the  effect  of  the  act  in  changing  the  regards 
of  the  Father  towards  the  sinner,  was  only  the  representation,  in 
the  sublime  and  ineffable  region  of  mystery,  of  an  effect  which 
men  recognized  in  their  own  minds.  The  human  heart  accepts 
mediation.  It  does  not  understand  it  as  a  whole  ;  but  the  frag¬ 
ment  of  which  it  is  conscious  is  enough  to  defend  the  doctrine 
upon  the  score  of  morals.”  “Justice  is  a  fragment,  mercy  is  a 
fragment,  mediation  is  a  fragment ;  justice,  mercy,  mediation  as 
a  reason  for  mercy — all  three;  what  indeed  are  they  but  great 
vistas  and  openings  into  an  invisible  world  in  which  is  the  point 
of  view  which  brings  them  all  together?” 


CHAPTER  IV 


THEOLOGY  IN  ENGLAND  IN  THE  NINETEENTH  .CENTURY  (CONTINUED)  : 

THE  BROAD  CHURCHMEN - THE  “  ESSAYS  AND  REVIEWS” - THE 

BROAD  CHURCH  IN  SCOTLAND  :  THOMAS  ERSKINE  j  McLEOD  CAMP¬ 
BELL  THEOLOGICAL  OPINIONS  OF  MATTHEW  ARNOLD  THE 

CHRISTIAN  AGNOSTICISM  OF  HAMILTON  AND  MANSEL - POSITIVISM 

- THE  REVIVAL  OF  HUME’S  PHILOSOPHY  :  J.  S.  MILL THE 

AGNOSTICISM  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER - INFLUENCE  OF  DARWINISM 

ON  THEOLOGY - AGNOSTIC  OPINIONS  OF  T.  H.  HUXLEY 

While  the  Oxford  Movement  was  spreading,  liberalism  in  the 
English  Church  was  advancing  and  assuming  different  phases. 
The  name  of  “  Broad  Church  ”  is  indefinite,  and  embraces  under 
it  writers  of  widely  varying  tenets.  The  influence  of  Arnold  was 
continued,  but  was  greatly  modified  by  the  effect  of  the  religious 
philosophy  of  Coleridge.  The  “  evidential  ”  or  Paleyan  spirit, 
which  belonged  to  Whately  and  his  school,  gave  way  to  a  differ¬ 
ent  tone.  Archdeacon  Julius  Charles  Hare,  a  warm  friend  of 
Bunsen,  who  had  for  a  time  considerable  influence  on  theological 
thought  in  England,  was  ‘  broad,’  yet  evangelical  in  the  true  mean¬ 
ing  of  the  term.  This  is  apparent  in  his  Victory  of  Faith  (1840), 
and  in  his  earlier  work,  the  Mission  of  the  Comforter.  Frederick 
Denison  Maurice  was  a  leader,  with  not  a  few  disciples,  in  the 
Broad  Church  party.  He  began  life  as  a  Unitarian,  but  became 
a  fervent  believer  in  the  Incarnation,  which  had  a  central  place 
in  his  beliefs.  Of  his  many  productions  in  theology  and  philoso¬ 
phy,  perhaps  the  Kingdom  of  Christ  is  the  most  important.  In 
his  work  on  “  Sacrifice  ”  and  in  his  Theological  Essays,  he  discards 
the  idea  of  satisfaction  by  suffering  of  a  penal  nature.  “  Christ 
satisfied  the  Father  by  presenting  the  image  of  His  own  holiness 
and  love.”  “  In  His  sacrifice,  this  holiness*  and  love  came  forth 
completely.”  “  He  bore  the  sins  of  the  world  in  the  sense  that 

473 


474 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


He  felt  them  with  that  anguish  with  which  only  a  perfectly  pure 
and  holy  being,  who  is  also  a  perfectly  sympathizing  and  gracious 
being,  can  feel  the  sins  of  others.”  “  His  whole  life  was  a  reflec¬ 
tion  of  the  mind  of  God.”  There  is  no  “  artificial  substitution,” 
Christ  being  the  “  sinless  root  of  humanity,”  the  source  of  all 
light  in  them,  “  the  root  of  righteousness  in  each  man.”  Maurice 
was  involved  in  a  controversy  in  consequence  of  his  expressions 
on  the  subject  of  eternal  punishment.  His  views  on  this  topic  are 
presented  in  the  volume  of  Essays,  in  his  treatise  on  the  Gospel 
of  John,  and  in  his  Lettei '  to  Dr.  Jelf.  In  this  last  publication  he 
denies  that  he  is  a  Universalist.  Whether  suffering  hereafter  will 
be  without  end,  he  profit is e?  himself  unable  to  affirm  or  deny. 
The  word  ‘  eternal  ’  (aiomos)  in  Scripture  is  said  to  have  no 
reference  to  time ;  it  is  applied  to  God  and  to  things  extra¬ 
temporal.  It  denotes  not  duration,  but  a  state  or  quality.  Life 
eternal  is  the  knowledge  of  God  ;  it  is  now  as  well  as  hereafter. 
The  opposite  is  the  condition  of  a  soul  bereft  of  God.  F.  W.  Rob¬ 
ertson  and  Charles  Kingsley  were  among  the  many  who  looked 
up  to  Maurice  as  their  inspiring  teacher. 

Dean  Stanley,  so  prominent  a  personage  among  Broad  Church¬ 
men,  was  a  much  more  advanced  latitudinarian  than  men  like 
Hare  and  Maurice.  But  his  predominant  tastes  were  literary  and 
historical.  Although  keen  in  his  perceptions,  he  was  constitu¬ 
tionally  averse  to  metaphysics,  and,  as  a  rule,  we  seek  in  vain 
in  his  writings  for  positive  or  sharp  definitions  on  litigated  points 
of  doctrine.  In  his  History  of  the  Jewish  Church  he  follows  in 
general,  as  he  professes  to  do,  in  the  steps  of  Ewald.  He  disavows 
the  intention  to  discriminate  between  the  natural  and  supernatural 
in  the  events  of  Old  Testament  history.  In  his  interesting  book 
on  Christian  Institutions,  Stanley  touches  on  various  doctrinal 
topics  in  a  manner  characteristic  of  the  author’s  habit  of  thought. 
In  baptism  no  efficacy  is  imputed  to  the  water.  “  Infant  baptism 
is  a  recognition  of  the  good  there  is  in  every  human  soul.”  1  “  In 

each  little  child  our  Saviour  saw,  and  we  may  see,  the  promise 
of  a  glorious  future.” 2  In  the  Eucharist,  the  body  is  “  the  essence 
of  Christ’s  character.”3  The  Supper  signifies  that  we  must  “in¬ 
corporate  and  incarnate  in  ourselves  —  that  is,  in  our  moral  natures 
—  the  substance,  the  moral  substance,  of  the  teaching  and  char¬ 
acter  of  Jesus  Christ.”  4  The  Cup  is  a  sign  of  the  offering  made, 

1  Christian  Institutions ,  p.  14.  2  Ibid.  p.  27.  3  Ibid.  p.  1 17.  4  Ibid.  p.  121 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


475 


“  not  by  a  feeble,  erring  mortal,  but  by  Him  who  is  by  all  of  us 
acknowledged  to  be  the  Ideal  of  man  and  the  Likeness  of  God.”1 
It  signifies  the  self-denying,  life-giving  love  of  Christ,  and  is  a  test 
of  our  love  and  loyalty  in  self-sacrifice.  The  rite  of  Absolution 
is  founded  on  a  “  misinterpretation  of  texts.”  “  The  mystical 
offices  of  a  sacerdotal  caste  will  vanish  ”  —  as  alchemy  and  astrol¬ 
ogy,  brutal  amusements  and  scholastic  casuistry  —  “before  the 
growth  of  manly  Christian  independence  and  generous  Christian 
sympathy.”  The  institution  of  the  Clergy  or  Bishops  sprang  up 
after  the  death  of  Christ.  The  primitive  offices  (the  pastoral 
and  intellectual)  were  in  a  sense  His  gift  after  His  earthly  life.2 
Episcopacy  was  a  gradual  growth.  The  various  grades  of  the 
Christian  clergy  have  sprung  up  in  the  same  ways  and  by  the 
same  divine,  because  the  same  natural,  necessity  as  the  various 
grades  of  government,  law,  and  science.3  The  ministry  is  divine 
as  being  “  the  inevitable  growth  of  Christian  hopes  and  sympa¬ 
thies,  of  increasing  truth,  of  enlarging  charity.”4  Stanley  was  in 
full  sympathy  with  Arnold’s  theory  of  the  oneness  of  Church  and 
State,  and  of  the  consequent  obligation  of  making  the  Church  as 
nearly  as  possible  coextensive  with  the  nation  by  the  process 
of  ecclesiastical  tolerance  and  comprehension.  The  usual  note 
of  vagueness  belongs  to  Stanley’s  statements  respecting  the  Trin¬ 
ity.  The  name  “The  Father”  in  the  Creed  “  expresses  to  us  the 
whole  faith  of  what  we  call  Natural  Religion.” 5  It  represents  to 
us  God  in  nature,  “in  the  heavenly  or  ideal  world.”6  The  Son 
represents  to  us  God  in  history.7  In  Christ  the  kindness,  wisdom, 
and  tenderness  of  God  are  reflected.8  His  life  is  the  Word,  the 
speech  that  comes  out  of  “  that  eternal  silence  which  surrounds 
the  Unseen  Divinity.”  “  To  believe  in  the  name  of  Christ  is  to 
believe  that  no  other  approach  to  God  exists  except  through  the 
same  qualities  of  justice,  truth,  and  love  which  make  up  the  mind 
of  Christ.”9  “The  name  of  the  Holy  Ghost  represents  to  us  God 
in  our  own  hearts  and  spirits  and  consciences.”  10  “The  Spirit 
is  manifest  in  this  teaching  within  us,  in  the  promptings  of  truth 
and  purity,  of  justice  and  humility.”  11 

The  Oxford  Movement  appeared  to  come  to  a  head  in  the  pub- 

1  Christian  Institutions ,  p.  132.  6  Ibid.  p.  288.  9  Ibid.  p.  301. 

2  Ibid.  pp.  216,  217.  6  Ibid.  p.  299.  10  Ibid.  p.  305. 

3  Ibid  p.  218.  7  Ibid.  pp.  209,  305.  11  Ibid.  p.  312. 

4  Ibid.  p.  220.  8  Ibid.  p.  300. 


476 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


lication  of  Tract  No.  90,  and  was  the  signal  for  the  adverse  parties 
to  combine  against  it.  In  like  manner,  the  publication  of  Essays 
and  Reviews ,  in  i860,  was  regarded  as  the  climax  of  tendencies 
of  liberalism  which  had  excited  dread  and  hostility.  The  volume 
was  the  product  of  seven  authors,  each  writing  independently  of 
the  others.  The  essays  were  written  with  great,  although  unequal, 
ability.  They  were  from  authors  who  would  have  found  it  diffi¬ 
cult  to  agree  upon  theological  formulas.  The  first  essay,  by 
Dr.  Temple,  would  probably  have  provoked  comparatively  little 
antagonism,  but  for  the  company  in  which  it  was  found.  Yet 
through  the  volume  there  runs  a  thread  of  criticism  upon  prevail¬ 
ing  views  relative  to  the  inspiration  and  authority  of  the  Bible. 
It  was  naturally  complained  that,  as  concerns  the  miracles  as  his¬ 
torical  facts,  there  was  a  kind  of  ambiguity  or  indecision,  as  well 
as  respecting  what  is  meant  by  the  authority  of  Scripture.  It  is. 
intimated  by  Dr.  Temple  that  there  is  occasional  inaccuracy  in  the 
Bible,  and  it  is  said  that  “  the  principle  of  private  judgment '-puts 
conscience  between  us  and  the  Bible  ”  ; 1  the  effect  of  which  is 
that,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  interpretation  is  determined  in  accord 
with  the  verdicts  of  conscience.  The  essay  of  Rowland  Williams, 
on  “  Bunsen’s  Biblical  Researches,”  adopts  the  opinions  in  what 
is  now  called  “  higher  criticism  ”  of  that  learned,  yet  somewhat 
dilettantish,  writer.  Baden  Powell’s  essay  on  “  The  Study  of  the 
Evidences  of  Christianity  ”  is  an  able  discussion,  cautious,  but  at 
bottom  incredulous  as  to  the  methods  adopted  by  Apologists  in  proof 
of  the  truth  of  the  Scriptural  miracles.  The  essay  of  Wilson  on 
the  “  National  Church  ”  points  out  the  comfort  to  the  “  ideologist  ” 
of  perceiving  that  if  the  fact  of  miracles  cannot  be  accepted,  their 
“  spiritual  significance  ”  is  not  lost,  since  they  may  “  be  equally 
suggestive  of  true  ideas.”  2  The  essay  of  Godwin  on  the  “  Mosaic 
Cpsmogony  ”  argues  for  the  impossibility  of  reconciling  the  truths 
of  science  with  the  conceptions  of  the  author  of  Genesis,  believed 
by  him  to  be  accordant  with  fact.  The  essay  of  Jowett  on  “The 
Interpretation  of  Scripture,”  while  it  insists  that  Scripture,  con¬ 
trary  to  usage  in  the  past,  must  be  “  interpreted  like  any  other 
book,”  brings  forward  “  difficulties  ”  in  Scripture,  historical  and 
doctrinal,  which  are  evidently  considered  by  the  author  to  be 
incompatible  with  the  traditions  as  to  the  origin  of  some  of  its 
books  and  with  current  opinions  as  to  its  inerrancy.3  Mr.  Wilson 

1  PP-  5°>  5B  54-  2  P-  227-  •  3  E-g.,  pp.  376,  416. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


477 


concludes  his  essay  by  professing  the  hope  that  after  death  there  shall 
be  found  receptacles  for  those  who  are  infants  as  to  spiritual  develop¬ 
ment,  —  nurseries  where  the  undeveloped  may  grow  up  and  the  per¬ 
verted  be  restored,  so  that  finally  all  shall  find  a  refuge  “  in  the  bosom 
of  the  Universal  Parent.”1  The  opinions  expressed  in  the  volume 
by  Rowland  Williams  on  the  inspiration  of  the  Bible  and  against  the 
eternity  of  future  punishment  were  pronounced  by  the  Judicial  Com¬ 
mittee  of  the  Privy  Council  lawful  for  an  English  clergyman  to  hold. 

“  Broad  Church  Theology  ”  — -  deviations  from  Calvinism  not 
unfitly  so  designated  —  has  had  conspicuous  representatives  in 
Scotland.  Thomas  Erskine  of  Linlathen  (1788-1870),  who  was 
educated  as  a  lawyer,  but  early  retired  from  legal  practice,  pub¬ 
lished  in  1820  the  Internal  Evidence  for  the  truth  of  Revela¬ 
tion.  His  main  idea,  then  and  afterwards,  was  that  the  adapted¬ 
ness  of  the  Gospel  to  man’s  nature  and  needs  is  the  proof  of  its 
truth.  Faith  is  the  principle  of  spiritual  life,  which  is  awakened  by 
Christ,  and  is  the  eternal  righteousness  which  God  bestows.  In 
it  love  is  felt  to  be  the  law  of  life.  He  advocated  universal  restora¬ 
tion  on  the  ground  of  the  fatherly  character  of  God,  whose  love 
will  attain  to  its  end  and  aim.2  The  Shepherd  will  seek  for  the  lost 
sheep  “  until  he  is  found.”  This  doctrine  Erskine  supposed  to 
be  taught  by  the  Apostle  Paul  in  Rom.  v.  and  xi.3  “  Eternal  ” 
in  Matt.  xxv.  “  means  essential  in  opposition  to  phenomenal.” 
It  does  not  refer  to  duration.4  Erskine’s  influence  upon  Maurice, 
Stanley,  and  others,  by  his  books,  his  correspondence,  and  con¬ 
versation,  was  of  much  weight. 

John  McLeod  Campbell  (1800-1872)  was  excluded  from  the 
ministry  of  the  Scottish  Church  by  the  Assembly  in  1831,  for 
preaching  the  unlimited  Atonement  of  Christ  as  the  only  warrant 
for  bidding  men  to  be  assured  of  God’s  love  to  them.  He  lived, 
however,  to  be  universally  esteemed  and  honored  for  his  religious 
excellence.  Norman  McLeod  said  of  him  that  he  had  never  seen 
any  one  whose  character  so  closely  resembled  that  of  Jesus.  Camp¬ 
bell  published  a  book  on  the  Eucharist.5  But  his  principal  pro¬ 
duction  is  on  the  subject  of  the  Atonement0 — a  treatise  which 

a  p.  232.  3  Ibid.  p.  239. 

2  See  Erskine’s  Letters ,  Vol.  II.  p.  243.  4  Ibid.  pp.  135,  240. 

5  Christ  the  Bread  of  life  (1851,  2d  ed.  1869). 

6  The  Nature  of  the  Atonement,  and  its  Relation  to  Remission  of  Sins  and 
Eternal  Life  (1856,  4th  ed.  1873). 


478 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


for  its  depth  and  religious  earnestness  has  commanded  general 
:espect.  He  starts  with  the  alternative  of  Jonathan  Edwards,  that 
sin  must  be  followed  by  punishment,  or  by  an  adequate  repent¬ 
ance.  Discarding  the  idea  that  the  Atonement  is  the  bearing  of 
the  penalty,  he  regards  it  as  an  adequate  repentance  effected  in 
the  consciousness  of  Christ,  the  ingredient  of  personal  remorse 
being  absent,  but  all  the  spiritual  elements  being  present  which 
Edwards  finds  in  the  experience  of  Christ.  Christ  made  an 
expiatory  confession  of  our  sins,  which  was  “  a  perfect  Amen  in 
humanity  to  the  judgment  of  God  on  the  sin  of  man.”  1  Faith  is 
our  “Amen”  to  this  condemnation  in  the  soul  of  Christ.  Christ 
enters  fully  into  the  mind  of  God  respecting  sin ;  into  His  con¬ 
demnation  of  it,  and  into  His  love  to  the  sinner.  There  was  “  the 
equivalent  repentance  ”  which  Edwards  makes  the  alternative  of 
punishment.  With  this,  sanctioned,  reproduced  in  its  essential 
elements,  in  the  believer,  through  his  connection  with  Christ,  God 
is  satisfied. 

Campbell  goes  beyond  the  Moral  View  of  the  Atonement. 
He  makes  the  death  of  Christ  necessary  to  the  realization  by  Him 
of  God’s  feeling  and  man’s  need.  Without  “  the  perfected  expe¬ 
rience  of  the  enmity  of  the  carnal  mind  to  God,”  “  an  adequate 
confession  of  man’s  sin”  could  not  have  “been  offered  to  God 
in  humanity  in  expiation  of  man’s  sin,  nor  intercession  have  been 
made  according  to  the  extent  of  man’s  need  of  forgiveness.” 2 
Moreover,  it  is  declared  that  Christ  endured,  and  that  it  was  nec¬ 
essary  to  the  development  of  His  inward  experience  that  He 
should  endure,  death,  under  a  sense  of  its  character  as  “  the 
wages  of  sin.”  “As  our  Lord  alone  truly  tasted  death,  so  to 
Him  alone  had  death  its  perfect  meaning  as  the  wages  of  sin,  for 
in  Him  alone  was  there  full  entrance  into  the  mind  of  God 
towards  sin,  and  perfect  unity  with  that  mind.”3  Christ,  as  being 
alone  holy,  could  alone  understand,  and  duly  feel,  what  the  for¬ 
feiting  of  life  means.  If  men  were  mere  spirits,  a  response  to 
the  divine  mind  concerning  sin  could  only  have  had  spiritual  ele¬ 
ments  ;  but  man  being  capable  of  death,  and  death  being  the 
wages  of  sin,  it  was  not  simply  sin  that  had  to  be  dealt  with,  but 
“  an  existing  law  with  its  penalty  of  death,  and  that  death'  as 
already  incurred.”  Hence  a  response  was  necessary  to  “that 

1  The  Nature  of  the  Atonement,  etc.,  3d  ed.,  p.  136. 

2  Ibid.  p.  289.  3  Ibid.  p.  302. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


479 


expression  of  the  divine  mind  which  was  contained  in  God’s 
making  death  the  penalty  of  sin.”  1  The  characteristic  of  Camp¬ 
bell’s  view  is  that  suffering,  as  such,  he  regards  as  of  no  account, 
but  suffering  and  death  are  necessary  as  a  conditio  sine  qua  non 
of  that  entering  into  the  mind  of  God  —  that  expiatory  confes¬ 
sion —  which  he  considers  the  moral  essence  of  the  Atonement. 
Yet,  it  will  be  observed  that,  according  to  this  representation 
Christ  endures  death,  and  with  a  vivid,  painful,  complete  con¬ 
sciousness  of  the  penal  quality  that  belongs  to  it.  It  may  be 
'  asked,  how  could  this  death  come  nearer  to  being  identical  with 
penalty,  save  by  the  introduction  of  an  element  of  personal 
remorse  or  self-accusation,  which  Edwards  equally  excludes? 

Campbell’s  conception  approaches  nearer  to  the  idea  of  an 
objective,  penal  satisfaction  —  not,  however,  a  legal  substitution 
—  than  he  appears  distinctly  to  perceive.  This  is  suggested  in 
Dr.  R.  W.  Dale’s  thoughtful  work  on  the  Atonement,  in  which  it 
is  urged  that  the  obstacle  to  the  offer  and  exercise  of  divine  for¬ 
giveness  is  removed  objectively  by  the  sanction  which  Christ 
renders  to  the  law  of  God  through  His  willing  endurance  of  the 
lot  justly  suffered  by  transgressors. 

An  appreciative  criticism  of  Campbell’s  treatise  is  included  in 
Dr.  A.  B.  Bruce’s  work,  The  Humiliation  of  Christ.  This  author,  who 
reviews  in  an  enlightened  spirit  modern  as  well  as  ancient  types 
of  opinion  respecting  the  Atonement,  finds  room  for  the  aspects 
of  the  subject  which  are  of  later  origin,  yet  does  not  give  up  the 
penal  element  in  the  sufferings  of  Christ,  the  objective  imputation 
of  sin  to  the  Redeemer.2 

The  doctrine  of  conditional  immortality,  or  the  ultimate  annihi¬ 
lation  of  the  incorrigibly  wicked,  has  been  espoused  in  England  by 
a  number  of  distinguished  writers.  It  has  been  advocated  with 
ability  in  the  writings  of  James  Baldwin  Brown.  It  is  presented 
in  the  Life  of  Christ  and  in  other  writings  of  Mr.  Edward  White. 
He  maintains  that  immortality  is  a  truth,  not  of  reason  but  of 
revelation,  and  that  it  is  a  gift  of  God  not  indiscriminately  bestowed. 
Mr.  White  connects  with  this  opinion  a  belief  in  a  continued  pro¬ 
bation  after  death  for  such  as  have  not  hardened  their  hearts  by 
a  rejection  of  Christ.  On  this  point  he  is  in  accord  with  Dorner. 
Dr.  Orr,  in  his  recent  work,  while  bringing  forward  arguments 

*  1  The  Nature  of  the  Atonement ,  etc.,  3d  ed.,  p.  303. 

2  See  his  2d  ed.,  p.  351. 


480 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


against  this  opinion  of  Mr.  White,  says  :  “  The  conclusion  I  arrive 
at  is,  that  we  have  not  the  elements  of  a  complete  evolution  and 
we  ought  not  to  attempt  it.  What  visions  beyond  there  may  be, 
what  larger  hopes,  what  ultimate  harmonies,  if  such  there  are  in 
store,  will  come  in  God’s  good  time ;  it  is  not  ours  to  anticipate 
them  or  lift  the  veil  where  God  has  left  it  drawn  !  ” 1 

In  Mr.  Hutton’s  Essays  on  Modern  Guides  of  English  Thought ', 
Matthew  Arnold  is  one  of  the  four  later  writers  to  whom  a  place 
in  this  list  is  accorded.  It  is,  no  doubt,  owing  much  to  the 
attraction  which  he  was  able,  as  a  master  of  the  literary  art,  to 
lend  to  his  discussions  of  religious  topics.  His  position  is  unique 
and  hardly  falls  within  the  limit  of  any  creed  recognized  as 
Christian.  Yet  he  deserves  credit  for  a  sincere  desire  to  rescue 
the  Bible  from  the  neglect  and  even  contempt  with  which  it  is 
often  treated  in  these  days,  especially  by  the  uneducated  class. 
There  is  an  important  basis  of  truth  in  the  general  affirmation,  on 
which  Arnold  is  never  tired  of  insisting,  that  “  the  language  of 
the  Bible  is  fluid,  passing,  and  literary,  not  rigid,  fixed,  and  scien¬ 
tific.”  He  is  not  a  profound  Biblical  scholar,  nor,  on  the  other 
hand,  is  he  a  superficial  or  ill-informed  writer,  even  on  matters 
pertaining  to  New  Testament  criticism.  Among  the  exceptions 
of  a  general  nature  to  be  taken  to  his  ways  of  thought,  there  is  to 
be  reckoned  his  overweening  regard  for  that  impersonal  divinity, 
the  Zeitgeist ,  or  “  Time-Spirit,”  as  he  well  renders  the  German 
phrase.  The  “  Time-Spirit  ”  was  nevei  more  self-assured,  never 
more  full  of  disdain  for  all  who  questioned  its  authority,  than  in 
the  eighteenth  century,  in  the  period  when  a  shallow  deistic  philos¬ 
ophy  was  prevalent.  In  the  earlier  part  of  the  present  century  the 
“  Time-Spirit  ”  in  Germany  found  in  the  older  and  now  exploded 
naturalistic  Rationalism,  springing  from  the  Kantian  school,  the 
acme  of  possible  attainment  in  the  sphere  of  religion.  The  in¬ 
junction  of  the  Apostle  is  to  “  hold  fast  ”  —  not  that  which  is  new 
—  but  “  that  which  is  good.” 

Arnold  wished  to  find  “  for  the  Bible  a  basis  in  something  which 
can  be  verified.”  The  corner-stone  of  his  system,  if  system  it  is 
to  be  called,  is  a  conception  of  God  which  he  not  only  regards  as 
true,  and  evidently  so,  but  even  identifies  with  the  Biblical  idea 
respecting  this  fundamental  point.  His  theory  may  be  termed 
an  unscientific  Pantheism  ;  or  perhaps,  inasmuch  as  he  does  not 

1  The  Christian  View  of  God  and  the  World  (2d  ed.),  p.  397. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


481 


profess  to  exhaust  the  conception  of  the  Deity  by  his  definition, 
an  Agnostic  Pantheism.  In  Literature  and  Dogma ,  with  much, 
although  it  can  scarcely  be  said  with  wearisome,  iteration  he  ex¬ 
plains  that  the  equivalent  of  God  is  “the  Power,  not  ourselves,  that 
makes  for  righteousness.”  Does  “  Power  ”  here  mean  “  Cause  ”? 
There  is  a  Power,  a  Power  exerting  itself,  or  being  exerted,  a 
Power  exerting  itself  for  a  particular  end,  or  producing  a  definite 
effect ;  yet  it  must  not  be  denominated  a  “  cause.”  In  his  sec¬ 
ond  work,  God  and  the  Bible ,  he  makes  an  elaborate  effort  to 
explain  his  remarkable  definition  of  God,  and  the  Israelites’  con¬ 
ception  of  Him,  and  to  rule  out  the  idea  that  under  the  “  Power, 
not  ourselves,”  there  is  included  the  notion  of  a  being.  In  this 
latter  work  we  are  told  that  we  must  not  think  of  “  the  Power  that 
makes  for  righteousness  ”  as  inhering  in  a  subject :  this  is  a  mis¬ 
conception  ;  it  is  anthropomorphic.  Yet  there  is  an  “  operation  ” 
of  which  blessedness  is  the  result.  Things  are  so  constituted  that 
the  supposed  effect  is  produced.  It  is  a  “  law  of  nature  ”  like  the 
law  of  gravitation.  It  is  a  “  stream  of  tendency.”  When  we 
speak,  and  when  the  Israelites  spoke,  of  the  “  Power  that  makes 
for  righteousness  ”  as  “  eternal,”  all  that  is  really  signified  is  that 
righteousness  always  was  and  always  will  be  attended  with  blessing. 
Arnold  does  not  seem  to  be  aware  that  in  trying  to  fence  off  the 
conception  of  being  as  connected  with  the  “  Power,  not  ourselves,” 
he  does  not  succeed  in  escaping  from  what  he  styles  “  meta¬ 
physics.”  There  is  an  “operation”  left;  there  is  “a  perceived 
energy.”  The  doctrine  is  simply  this:  that  the  world — things 
collectively  taken  —  is  such  that  a  certain  result,  namely,  blessed¬ 
ness,  is  sure  to  be  worked  out  by  the  practice  of  righteousness. 
It  falls  short  of  being  a  dogmatic  Pantheism  by  the  added  state¬ 
ment  that  we  cannot  “  pretend  to  know  the  origin  and  composi¬ 
tion  of  the  Power  ”  ;  we  cannot  say  that  it  is  a  person  or  thing. 
In  one  place  Arnold  professes  that  he  will  not  deny  that  “  the 
Power”  is  “a  conscious  intelligence.”  But  ordinarily  he  treats 
the  conception  that  this  “Power”  is  intelligent  as  pure  anthropo¬ 
morphism.  If  it  be  this,  why  admit  it  even  as  a  possibility?  Per¬ 
haps  the  study  of  a  few  pages  of  Lotze  might  have  convinced 
him  that,  if  by  anthropomorphism  is  meant  the  limiting  of  God,  or 
making  Him  finite,  no  such  consequence  follows  from  personality. 

What  becomes  of  devotion,  of  what  men  have  always  meant  by 
prayer  and  communion  with  God,  when  God  is  made  to  be  nothing 


482 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


more  than  a  law  of  things,  “  a  stream  of  tendency”?  In  a  foot¬ 
note  Arnold  gives  the  following  answer :  “  All  good  and  fruitful 
prayer,  however  men  may  describe  it,  is  at  bottom  nothing  else 
than  an  energy  of  aspiration  towards  the  Eternal,  not  ourselves ,  that 
makes  for  righteousness,  —  of  aspiration  towards  it,  and  coopera¬ 
tion  with  it.”  The  Eternal,  it  must  be  remembered,  which  is 
referred  to  by  the  use  of  the  pronoun  it ,  signifies  no  being,  — 
this  is  expressly  disclaimed.  “  It,”  “  the  Eternal,”  is  the  fact 
that  “  righteousness  was  salvation,”  and  will  “  go  on  being  salva¬ 
tion.”  “  It,”  “  the  Eternal,”  is  the  experienced  and  expected 
conjunction  of  these  two  things.  What  aspiration  towards  “  it,” 
and  cooperation  with  “  it  ”  denote,  and  with  what  propriety  either 
of  these  or  both  together  can  be  taken  to  signify  prayer ,  in  partic¬ 
ular  the  supplication  which  has  always  been  held  to  be  the  prime 
essential  in  prayer,  is  not  explained. 

Considering  the  tendencies  of  the  time  in  the  direction  of 
Pantheistic  thought,  it  is  not  a  matter  of  surprise  that  Arnold 
should  bring  forward  the  notion  of  an  impersonal  divinity.  There 
is  surely  some  reason  for  surprise  that  Arnold  should  present  his 
conception  as  the  kernel  of  the  Israelites’  faith,  the  living  God  of 
whom  the  prophets  spoke,  and  in  praise  of  whose  perfection  the 
Psalms  were  composed.  He  admits,  to  be  sure,  that  the  Hebrews 
personified,  and  could  not  but  personify,  “  the  Stream  of  ten¬ 
dency.”  Yet  he  regards  the  personal  qualities  which  the  Hebrews 
attached  to  God  as  an  accidental  and  separable  element  in  their 
faith.  Not  even  an  intuition  is  allowed  them  of  this  imaginary 
divinity,  the  connection  of  righteousness  with  happiness,  but  their 
knowedge  of  “  it  ”  is  described  as  empirical ;  it  is  something 
found  out  by  experience.  “  From  all  they  could  themselves  make 
out,  and  from  all  that  their  fathers  had  told  them,”  they  arrived  at 
the  conclusion  that  righteousness  is  the  way  to  happiness. 

Having  subtracted  from  religion  and  theology  the  fundamental 
truth  of  a  personal  God,  what  account  does  Arnold  give  of  the 
substance  of  Christianity?  Certainly  he  presents  thoughts  and 
suggestions  of  spiritual  value,  and  certain  felicitous  phrases  respect¬ 
ing  Christ  which  easily  take  lodgment  in  the  memory.  The  sum 
of  his  doctrine  is  contained  in  his  often-repeated  statement  of  the 
“  method  ”  and  the  “  secret  ”  of  Jesus,  and  the  spirit  or  tone  of 
His  teaching.  The  method  is  that  of  “inwardness,”  —  “Cleanse 
the  inside  of  the  cup.”  So  far  there  is  nothing  novel  and  nothing 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


483 


to  be  disputed  in  our  author’s  exposition.  The  secret  is  self¬ 
renouncement,  —  “  He  that  will  save  his  life,  shall  lose  it.”  The 
element  in  which  the  method  and  spirit  are  worked  is  mildness ,  or 
what  is  expressively  termed  “  sweet  reasonableness.”  There  was, 
it  is  well  said,  a  “  winning  felicity  ”  and  a  “  balance,”  free  from  all 
fanaticism  and  extravagance.  But  the  “secret”  of  Jesus  leaves 
out  all  that  Jesus  says  of  the  Father  in  heaven,  of  the  relation  of 
the  human  soul  to  Him,  of  the  joy  of  personal  trust  in  Him,  of  His 
unsleeping  care  of  His  children.  The  Divine  Father  Himself  is 
left  out.  It  leaves  out  the  conception  which  Jesus  has  of  the 
inward  life  of  the  soul,  of  his  conscious  relation  to  the  Father.  It 
takes  no  account  of  the  prayers  of  Jesus,  of  the  saying  that  He 
was  not  alone  because  the  Father  was  with  Him,  of  His  last  words, 
“Father,  into  Thy  hands  I  commend  My  spirit.”  We  are  not 
surprised  when  Arnold  tells  us  that  Buddhism  has  not  only  the 
sense  for  righteousness,  but  has  even  the  “secret  of  Jesus.”  But 
it  employs  the  secret  ill,  it  is  added,  because  it  lacks  the  method, 
“  the  sweet  reasonableness,  the  unerring  balance.”  The  central, 
substantial  principle,  the  “  secret,”  is  declared  to  be  in  both  sys¬ 
tems  the  same.  The  real  distinction  between  them,  the  radical 
distinction  and  source  of  differences,  Arnold  omits  to  point  out, 
—  namely,  the  Pantheistic  root  of  the  Buddhistic  ethics,  in  con¬ 
trast  with  the  doctrine  of  the  living,  personal  God  and  Father, 
which  is  involved  in  all  the  teaching  of  Jesus,  and  pervades  Chris¬ 
tianity  as  a  religious  and  ethical  system. 

That  Arnold  should  discard  the  New  Testament  miracles  alto¬ 
gether,  is  the  necessary  consequence  of  his  repudiation  of  Christian 
theism.  If  nature  and  the  course  of  nature  are  not  traced  back 
to  the  will  of  a  Creator  and  Sustainer  of  all  things,  there  is  no 
room  left  for  the  supernatural  either  in  the  realm  of  matter  or  in 
that  of  spirit.  Arnold  well  defines  his  position  on  this  subject 
when  he  says  that  if  we  had  accounts  of  the  ministry  of  Christ 
which  we  knew  to  have  come  from  the  immediate  Disciples,  we 
should  not  have  in  them  a  whit  less  of  the  miraculous  than  the 
canonical  Gospels  contain.  We  must  infer  that  it  was  impossible 
for  Jesus,  in  case  He  really  healed  the  blind  and  the  lame,  as  the 
Gospels  record,  to  have  furnished  any  credible  evidence  that  He 
did  it,  —  any  evidence  to  be  relied  on  in  after  times,  or  affording 
ground  for  reasonable  belief  in  the  facts  even  to  those  who  were 
with  Him  when  they  occurred.  Our  conception  of  Christ  Himself 


484 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


must  be  seriously  affected  if  it  could  be  assumed  that  the  family  of 
followers  whom  He  associated  with  Himself,  whom  He  personally 
taught  and  trained,  were  utterly  disqualified  from  giving  substan¬ 
tially  trustworthy  testimony  concerning  what  with  their  own  eyes 
they  saw  Him  do.  In  his  comments  on  the  Gospels,  Arnold  shows 
himself  quite  capable  of  discerning  the  weak  side  of  the  criticisms 
of  Baur  and  the  Tubingen  School.  He  rejects  the  idea  that  the 
Fourth  Gospel  is  a  theological  romance,  as  Baur  conceived  it  to 
be,  and  with  it  the  notion  that  the  Apostle  John  did  not  live  at 
Ephesus.1 

A  kind  of  believing  and  Christian  agnosticism  was  introduced 
into  theology  by  Sir  William  Hamilton  and  some  of  his  disciples. 
Hamilton  followed  Kant  in  denying  that  the  Unconditioned  can 
be  an  object  of  conception  or  positive  thought.  The  Uncondi¬ 
tioned  embraces  the  Infinite  and  the  Absolute.  The  Absolute 
denotes  that  which  is  free  from  all  necessary  relations  to  any  other 
being  —  which  is  free  from  every  relation  as  a  condition  of  exist¬ 
ence.  The  Infinite  denotes  that  which  is  free  from  all  possible 
limitations ;  than  which  a  greater  is  inconceivable,  and  which, 
therefore,  can  be  possessed  of  no  attribute  which  it  had  not  from 

1  The  contrast  is  striking  between  the  light  humor  of  Matthew  Arnold’s 
prose  writings  and  the  gloom  of  his  poetry.  In  the  poems,  which  are  so  ad¬ 
mirable  in  their  way,  one  may  not  doubt  that  his  inmost  feeling  finds  expres¬ 
sion.  There  pervades  them  a  tone  of  sadness,  —  a  sadness  without  remedy 
and  without  solace.  Faith  gone,  the  fountains  of  joy  are  dry.  And  yet  he 
sees  that  the  millions  — 

“  Have  such  need  of  joy  !  ” 

The  want  of  the  world  is  — 

“  One  mighty  wave  of  thought  and  joy  lifting  mankind  amain.” 

But  the  poet  sees  no  ground  of  hope.  He  has  no  counsel  to  give  to  mortals, 
in  their  unquenchable  yearning  for  bliss,  but  to  “  moderate  desire,”  to  be  con¬ 
tent  with  what  a  few  days  on  earth  may  yield.  A  lesson  may  be  read  in 
Tennyson  the  reverse  of  the  despairing  inference  of  Arnold  :  — 

“  My  own  dim  life  should  teach  me  this, 

That  life  shall  live  for  evermore, 

Else  earth  is  darkness  at  the  core, 

And  dust  and  ashes  all  that  is ; 

“  This  round  of  green,  this  orb  of  flame, 

Fantastic  beauty  ;  such  as  lurks 
In  some  wild  poet,  when  he  works 
Without  a  conscience  or  an  aim.” 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


485 


eternity.  They  involve  the  negation  of  conceivability.  Yet  in 
reference  to  space,  time,  and  degree,  “  the  three  species  of  quan¬ 
tity  which  constitute  the  relations  of  existence,”  we  are  presented 
with  contradictory  propositions,  one  of  which,  therefore,  must  be 
true.  For  example,  we  can  conceive  of  space  neither  as  infinitely 
extended  nor  as  absolutely  bounded.  Yet  one  or  the  other  must 
be  real.  Hamilton’s  inference  is  that  the  limits  of  our  thought  are 
not  the  limits  of  existence.  He  blames  Kant  for  not  showing  that 
the  antinomies  are  due  to  the  fact  that  the  Unconditioned  is  not  a 
notion,  either  simple  or  positive,  but  “  only  a  fasciculus  of  nega¬ 
tives.”  The  truth  is  that  we  are  not  able  to  understand  as  possi¬ 
ble  either  of  two  extremes,  one  of  which  must  be  recognized  as 
true.1  The  sources  of  religious  and  Christian  belief  are  in  our 
moral  nature.  Which  horn  in  each  case  of  the  dilemma  —  for 
example,  the  dilemma  of  necessity  or  freedom  —  we  are  to  take, 
is  determined  by  our  moral  nature.  In  Mansel’s  Limitations  of 
Religions  Thought ,  the  Hamiltonian  philosophy  is  applied  to 
Christian  Theology.  Faith  rests  on  the  feeling  of  dependence 
and  the  feeling  of  obligation,  and  on  the  Christian  Revelation. 
But  Rationalism  and  Dogmatic  Theology  are  both  silenced  by 
reason  of  the  inconceivable  nature  of  the  objects  of  faith.  Our 
knowledge  in  this  province  is  relative.  It  is  symbolic  rather  than 
literal.  It  tells  us  how  God  would  have  us  think  of  Him,  but  not 
what  He  is  in  itself.  This  last  is  incommunicable.  Even  the 
moral  attributes  cannot  be  affirmed  to  correspond  fully  to  the 
same  qualities  in  men.  Even  his  personality  must  be  asserted 
with  a  like  reservation.  Mansel’s  work  evoked  energetic  protests 
in  very  diverse  quarters.  Among  the  antagonists  who  wrote 
against  it  were  F.  D.  Maurice,  Gold  win  Smith,  and  John  Stuart 
Mill. 

Before  touching  on  the  renewed  appearance  of  an  empirical 
philosophy  in  England,  a  brief  reference  may  be  made  to  a  like 
event  in  France.  The  Sensualistic  and  Materialistic  School,  which 
professed  to  build  upon  the  premises  of  Locke,  was  assailed  by  a 
spiritual  eclectic  philosophy,  of  which  Royer-Collard  (1763-1845) 
was  the  founder.  He  was  a  disciple  of  Reid.  The  work  that  he 
began  was  carried  forward  by  Victor  Cousin  (1792-1867)  and  his 
followers,  of  whom  Jouffroy  (1796—1842)  was  the  ablest.  The 

1  Hamilton’s  Lectures  on  Metaphysics ,  p.  527  ;  Appendix,  p.  647.  “Phi¬ 
losophy  of  the  Conditioned  ”  (in  Wright’s  ed.  of  Hamilton's  Philosophy'),  p.  459. 


486 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


Eclectic  School  was  influenced  by  Kant,  and  to  some  extent  by 
Schelling.  It  was  under  the  auspices  of  Auguste  Comte  (1798- 
1857)  that  the  grounds  of  theism  were  once  more  attacked.  From 
him  sprung  the  Positivist  School.  He  maintained  that  we  have 
no  knowledge  save  of  phenomena,  or  things  as  manifested  to  our 
consciousness.  Phenomena  are  arranged  according  to  their  like¬ 
ness  or  unlikeness,  and  in  their  chronological  order  of  occurrence. 
How  we  become  possessed  of  the  notions  of  likeness  and  of  suc¬ 
cession  is  not  cleared  up.  Of  efficient  or  final  causes,  if  they 
exist,  we  have  no  knowledge.  Religion  is  a  product  of  imagination. 
There  are  three  stages  of  thought, —  the  mythical,  the  metaphysical, 
and  the  scientific  or  positivist.  In  the  first  the  personifying 
imagination  attributes  natural  phenomena  to  personal  agents. 
Theism  is  the  ripe  form  of  this  tendency.  In  the  second  stage 
persons  are  exchanged  for  substances  and  causes.  In  the  third, 
it  becomes  plain  that  knowledge  is  limited  to  phenomena,  to  be 
classified  by  their  degree  of  resemblance  and  their  temporal  rela¬ 
tion.  In  his  old  age  Comte  sought,  to  the  disgust  of  many  of  his 
followers,  to  bring  back  religion,  which  his  system  had  banished, 
in  the  form  of  a  sentimental  worship  of  humanity,  of  which  woman, 
the  Virgin  Mary  in  particular,  is  the  symbol. 

In  England,  the  philosophy  of  Hume  was  reproduced  by  John 
Stuart  Mill.  The  associational  psychology  found  in  him  an 
acute  advocate.  It  is  expounded  in  his  Inductive  Logic,  in  his 
Review  of  Sir  W.  Hamilton'' s  Writings,  and  in  miscellaneous 
essays.  “  Intuitions  ”  are  the  product  of  experience.  They  arise 
from  impressions  which  begin  in  infancy,  and  are  so  frequently 
conjoined  as  to  seem  native  to  the  mind.  This  is  said  of  geo¬ 
metrical  axioms.  We  are  told  that  there  may  be  other  planets 
where  two  and  two  are  five.  Causation  is  another  name  for  the 
invariable  association  of  phenomena  by  which  an  expectation  as 
to  their  recurrence  is  created  that  is  delusively  thought  to  be 
instinctive.  The  mind  is  a  series  of  sensations  with  the  possibility 
of  other  sensations.  We  are  hindered  only  by  the  fact  of  memory 
from  asserting  the  mind  to  be  nothing  but  such  a  “  series  ”  con¬ 
scious  of  itself.  In  his  later  writings,  Mill  was  disposed  to  believe 
in  a  form  of  theism,  and  to  find  considerations  in  favor  of  the 
doctrine  of  a  future  life.  He  attributed  weight  to  the  argument 
of  design,  but  his  faith  in  it  was  weakened  by  the  appearance  of 
Darwinism. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


487 


The  agnostic  system  of  Herbert  Spencer  accords  with  Hume 
and  Mill  in  tracing  intuitions  to  an  empirical  source.  It  is  not, 
however,  the  experience  of  the  individual,  but  that  of  the  race,  to 
which  their  origin  is  attributed.  Heredity  is  taken  as  the  clew  to 
the  solution  of  the  problem  of  their  emergence  in  the  conscious¬ 
ness  of  the  individual.  They  are  a  legacy  of  remote  ancestors, 
by  whom  they  were  gradually  acquired.  This  is  one  of  Spencer’s 
modifications  of  the  Positivist  Creed.  Moreover,  with  the  Posi¬ 
tivist  doctrine  that  all  our  knowledge  is  of  phenomena,  he  seeks 
to  connect  the  Pantheistic  theory  of  an  unknown  substance  or 
power  —  called  “  the  Unknowable”  —  at  the  root  of  all  phenom¬ 
ena.  We  only  know  that  it  is,  and  that  all  phenomena  are  its 
manifestations  in  consciousness.  From  Hamilton  is  adopted  the 
notion  of  the  relativity  of  knowledge,  and  the  inconceivability  of 
“  the  Infinite  ”  ;  but  the  supplementary  doctrine  of  Kant  and 
Hamilton  of  a  well-grounded  belief  in  God  and  in  freedom,  on 
the  basis  of  our  moral  nature,  is  set  aside  or  left  out.  That  which 
we  call  mind  in  man  is  the  outcome  of  an  all-comprehensive 
process  of  evolution.  Nervous  organism  is  the  product  of  develop¬ 
ment  ;  from  nervous  organism  emerge  mental  phenomena.  “  Rea¬ 
son  rejects  ”  the  belief  in  our  personality,  unavoidable  as  this 
belief  is  confessed  to  be.1  But  materialism  is  disavowed,  on  the 
ground  that  the  nerve-movement  is  not  less  phenomenal  than  the 
feeling ;  both  being  assumed  to  be  the  “  faces  ”  or  “  sides  ”  of 
the  same  unknown  reality.  “  The  force  by  which  we  ourselves 
produce  changes  and  which  serves  to  symbolize  the  cause  of 
changes  in  general  ”  is  all  that  we  know  of  cause  in  the  Absolute, 
the  Unknowable.  If  Spencer  made  the  causal  idea  as  thus  de¬ 
rived  the  symbol  for  the  interpretation  of  “  changes  in  general,” 
he  would  be  a  theist.  By  deftly  resolving  cause  into  the  physical 
idea  of  force,  he  stamps  upon  his  system  a  Pantheistic  character. 
Were  he  to  predicate  intelligence  of  God,  he  would  be  guilty  of 
no  graver  assumption  than  when  he  ascribes  intelligence  to  his 
fellow-men.  It  has  been  conclusively  shown  that,  according  to 
Spencer’s  principles,  whatever  anthropomorphism  can  be  laid  to 
the  door  of  Christian  theism  must  be  predicated  of  the  whole 
fabric  of  natural  and  physical  science.  “  Relativity  ”  is  not  more 
fatal  in  the  one  place  than  in  the  other.  Religion,  in  Spencer’s 
theory  of  its  origin,  begins  in  the  worship  of  ancestors.2  The 

1  First  Principles,  pp.  64,  65.  2  Principles  of  Sociology,  Vol.  I.  c.  viii.  sq. 


488 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


belief  in  their  continued  existence  after  death  arises  partly  through 
dreams.  The  “  primitive  man,”  too,  mistakes  his  shadow  for 
another  man,  the  duplicate  of  himself.  Epilepsy,  insanity,  and 
like  maladies  confirm  the  notion  that  ghosts  come  and  go. 
Temples  were  at  first  tombs  of  the  dead.  Fetiches  were  parts 
of  their  clothing.  Idols  were  their  images.  To  explain  the  wor¬ 
ship  of  plants,  animals,  and  of  heavenly  bodies,  other  hypotheses 
or  conjectures,  such  as  linguistic  blunders,  figures  of  speech  being 
taken  as  literal  expressions,  are  brought  in. 

It  is  pretty  generally  agreed  that  the  Darwinian  theory  of  the 
descent  of  existing  animal  species,  even  when  man  is  included, 
does  not  militate  against  theism,  or  sap  the  foundation,  however 
it  may  vary  the  form,  of  the  argument  of  design.  “  The  teleo¬ 
logical  and  the  mechanical  views  of  nature  are  not  mutually  exclu¬ 
sive.”1  Darwin  himself,  to  be  sure,  admitted  an  element  of 
“  chance  ”  in  the  variation  which  furnishes  the  materials  for 
“  natural  selection  ” ;  but  “  chance,”  he  said,  is  an  incorrect 
expression  of  our  “ignorance  of  the  cause  of  each  particular  va¬ 
riation.”2  Yet  he  can  see  no  evidence  of  design  as  to  the  use  to 
be  made  of  the  results  of  variation,  and  finds  here  “  an  insoluble 
difficulty,”  like  that  of  “free-will  and  predestination.” 3  Such  a 
difficulty,  it  is  plain,  would  at  best  have  force  as  an  objection,  not 
against  the  existence ,  but  against  the  wisdom,  of  an  intelligent 
Creator.  However,  the  fact  of  such  a  haphazard  variation  is 
disputed  or  doubted  by  naturalists  of  the  highest  ability  who 
accept  the  evolutionary  hypothesis  of  Darwin.4  Intelligent  advo¬ 
cates  of  evolutionary  doctrine  in  its  extreme  form  perceive  that 
the  gulf  between  physical  states  and  consciousness  is  impassable.5 
It  is  more  and  more  recognized  that  such  questions  as  those  of  the 
personality  of  God  and  the  free  and  responsible  nature  of  man, 
are  beyond  the  province  and  the  power  of  physical  science  to 
determine.  Verified  knowledge  in  this  department  may  affect  tra¬ 
ditional  interpretations  of  early  narratives  in  the  book  of  Genesis, 
or  ideas  relative  to  their  inspiration,  but  can  reach  no  farther. 

1  Huxley,  Critiques ,  p.  307.  2  Origin  of  Species,  p.  137. 

3  Animals  and  Plants  under  Domestication ,  p.  58. 

4  For  example,  Dr.  Asa  Gray,  Darwiniana,  p.  148;  Huxley,  Encycl.  Brit. 
Vol.  VIII.  p.  751. 

5  For  example,  Tyndall,  Fragments  of  Science,  p.  121  :  “The  passage  from 
the  physics  of  the  brain  to  the  corresponding  facts  of  consciousness  is  unthink¬ 
able,”  etc. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


489 


“  It  may  be  remarked,”  writes  an  able  expositor  of  natural  sci¬ 
ence,  “  that  scientific  men  often  give  utterance  to  opinions  which 
far  transcend  the  limits  which  we  have  assigned  for  the  scope  of 
science.  .  .  .  When  a  scientific  man  expresses  an  opinion  on 
such  questions  as  the  existence  of  God  and  the  immateriality  of 
the  human  soul,  his  utterances  are  not  science  but  philosophy,  — 
good  or  bad  philosophy,  as  the  case  may  be.  The  opinions  of  a 
scientific  man  on  philosophy  or  theology  are  no  more  a  part  of 
science  than  are  his  opinions  on  politics  or  poetry.”  1 

One  of  the  class  of  scientific  men  who  have  interested  themselves 
in  questions  of  philosophy  and  theology  —  that  class,  of  which 
Professor  Rice  remarks  that  to  their  opinions  “  the  popular  mind 
often  attributes  the  same  degree  of  probability  as  belongs  to  the 
legitimate  conclusions  of  science  ”  — is  Professor  Huxley.  In  his 
little  book  on  Hume,  in  his  Lay  Sermons ,  in  his  controversial 
papers  against  Professor  Wace,  he  has  expressed  himself  too 
clearly  to  leave  us  in  any  doubt  in  reference  to  his  philosophical 
opinions.  He  has  explained  how  he  came  to  invent  the  term 
‘  Agnostic,’  which  describes  his  position.2  Professor  Huxley 
thinks  that  what  we  call  the  mind  is  a  collection  or  series  of  sen¬ 
sations  standing  in  certain  relations  to  each  other,  and  that  this  is 
all  we  know  about  it.  That  there  is  a  thinking  agent,  such  as 
men  generally  suppose  to  exist  when  they  use  the  word  ‘  I,’  there 
is  no  proof.  Their  conviction  is  not  an  intuition ;  it  is  not  a 
rational  postulate  ;  it  is  naught  except  a  bare  hypothesis  which 
there  is  no  ground  for  affirming  as  a  fact.  There  is  a  uniformity 
of  succession  in  the  sensations  which  constitute  the  soul,  as  far  as 
we  know  anything  of  it  or  have  any  reason  to  assert  anything  of 
it ;  but  there  is  no  freedom  of  choice,  in  the  sense  that  the  cir¬ 
cumstances,  internal  and  external,  being  the  same,  any  different 
determination  of  the  will  from  that  which  actually  takes  place  is 
possible.  It  is  a  natural  inquiry,  What  space  is  there,  on  this 
view  of  things,  for  personal  responsibility,  or  for  the  obligations 

1  The  passage  is  from  Professor  W.  N.  Rice’s  admirable  little  book,  Twenty- 
five  Years  of  Scientific  Progress  and  Other  Essays  (New  York,  1894),  p.  106. 

2  If  the  name  is  new,  the  main  thing  denoted  by  it  is  expressed  by  the 
Apostle  Paul  when  he  says  of  the  world,  that  it  “  kneiv  not  Godfi  although 
the  agnosticism  to  which  the  Apostle  referred  commonly  had  a  stock  of 
beliefs  of  its  own  in  regard  to  the  world  unseen,  therein  differing  from  the 
agnosticism  of  which  Professor  Huxley  has  the  distinction  of  being  the  god¬ 
father. 


490 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


of  morality?  “What  we  call  the  operations  of  the  mind,”  says 
Professor  Huxley,  “  are  functions  of  the  brain,  and  the  materials 
of  consciousness  are  products  of  cerebral  activity.”  But  the 
brain,  like  everything  else  that  is  alive,  is  developed  from  proto¬ 
plasm,  the  primitive  form  of  living  matter.  Still  Huxley  resents 
the  imputation  of  materialism.  He  insists  that  we  have  no  knowl¬ 
edge  of  anything  but  the  heap  of  sensations,  impressions,  feelings, 
—  or  by  whatever  name  they  may  be  called.  There  may  be  a 
real  something  without,  which  is  the  cause  of  all  our  impressions. 
In  that  case,  sensations  are  the  symbols  of  that  unknown  some¬ 
thing.  This  conclusion  Huxley  favors,  although  he  is  at  pains  to 
declare  that  idealism  is  unassailable  by  any  means  of  disproof 
within  the  limits  of  positive  knowledge.  It  is  not  explained  how, 
if  this  last  alternative  is  accepted,  the  idealist  is  to  avoid  the  con¬ 
clusion  which  metaphysicians  style  4  solipsism.’  But  the  “  some¬ 
thing  ”  of  which  the  brain  is  a  product  is  unintelligent;  and  when 
the  brain  dissolves,  there  is  nothing  to  prove  that  the  phenomena 
of  intelligence  continue.  There  is  no  proof  that  the  soul — that 
is,  the  series  of  sensations  —  does  not  come  to  an  end.  The 
existence  of  a  personal  God  is  another  of  the  propositions  which 
are  incapable  of  being  established.  “  In  respect  to  the  existence 
and  attributes  of  the  soul,  as  of  those  of  the  Deity,”  says  Huxley, 
“  logic  is  powerless  and  reason  silent.”  As  regards  the  attributes 
of  God, — justice,  benevolence,  and  the  like,  —  he  indicates  no 
dissent  from  the  “  searching  critical  negation  ”  of  Hume.  If  there 
be  a  God,  he  thinks  it  demonstrable  that  God  must  be  “  the  cause 
of  all  evil  as  well  as  all  good,”  —  a  conclusion  which  would  follow, 
to  be  sure,  from  the  tenet  that  man  is  not  a  personal  agent,  freely 
originating  his  voluntary  actions,  but  is  no  proper  adjunct  of  the 
opposite  doctrine.  As  a  consistent  agnostic,  Huxley  rejects 
Hume’s  definition  of  a  miracle  as  a  violation  of  the  order  of 
nature,  for  the  reason  that  the  “  laws  of  nature  ”  are  based  on 
incomplete  knowledge.  But  in  dealing  with  the  New  Testament 
narratives  he  follows  Hume  in  treating  the  miracle  as  an  isolated 
marvel.  He  confines  his  attention  to  its  unusual  character,  if  we 
suppose  it  to  be  an  actual  occurrence.  His  philosophy  admits  of 
no  interpretation  of  it  save  as  requiring  an  alteration  of  our  con¬ 
ception  of  the  constitution  of  nature.1 

1  On  what  is  meant  by  the  “  order  of  nature,”  and  the  relation  of  miracles 
to  it,  see  Mozley,  Bampton  Lectures ,  p.  43. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


491 


No  more  searching  and  cogent  answers  to  the  assailants  of  the 
fundamental  truths  of  religion  in  recent  times  have  appeared  than 
are  contained  in  writings  of  the  most  eminent  of  the  English 
Unitarian  ministers,  James  Martineau.  In  defending  a  spiritual 
philosophy  against  materialism  and  agnosticism,  he  has  carried 
the  war  with  equal  energy  and  courtesy  into  the  enemy’s  coun¬ 
try.1  Other  authors,  such  as  Robert  Flint2  and  Samuel  Harris,3  — 
and  not  a  few  other  names  would  have  to  be  added  to  complete 
the  list,  —  have  exposed  the  fallacies  of  antagonistic  schools,  and 
have  set  forth  the  rational  foundations  of  Christian  theism. 

1  Dr.  Martineau  is  the  author  of  Religion  and  Modern  Materialism  (1874), 
A  Study  of  Religion ,  its  Sources  and  Contents  (1888),  Types  of  Ethical  Theory 
(1886),  etc.  In  The  Seat  of  Authority  in  Religion  (1890),  Dr.  Martineau 
takes  up  questions  pertaining  to  Revealed  Religion.  Here  he  advocates 
opinions  characteristic  of  the  Tubingen  School  and  of  the  later  German 
Critical  School. 

2  Author  of  Theism  (7th  ed.  revised,  1874),  Anti-Theistic  Theories 
(2  ed.  1880). 

3  Author  of  The  Philosophical  Basis  of  Theism  (1883),  The  Self- Revelation 
of  God  { 1887). 


CHAPTER  V 


THE  ANGLO-FRENCH  DEISM - THEOLOGY  IN  GERMANY  IN  THE  NINE¬ 
TEENTH  CENTURY  :  DEISTIC  ILLUMINISM  IN  GERMANY - ZINZEN- 

DORF  AND  THE  MORAVIANS - THE  THEOLOGY  OF  LESSING - THE 

RATIONALISTIC  BIBLICAL  AND  HISTORICAL  CRITICISM  :  SEMLER  j 

EICHHORN - “THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  UNDERSTANDING” - THE 

PHILOSOPHY  OF  KANT - THE  KANTIAN  ETHICAL  RATIONALISM - 

JACOBI  AND  HERDER - TWO  DIVERGENT  CURRENTS  OF  THEOLOGI¬ 

CAL  THOUGHT 

The  last  century  witnessed  in  France  the  spread  of  deism,  which 
took  its  rise  in  England,  and  with  deism  the  advocacy  and  spread 
of  a  materialistic  atheism.  Voltaire  (1694-1778),  whose  sway 
in  the  domain  of  letters  surpassed  that  of  any  other  author  since 
Erasmus,  defended  deism,  as  verified  both  on  moral  grounds 
and  by  scientific  proof.  He  held  likewise  the  doctrine  of  immor¬ 
tality.  At  the  same  time  he  used  his  wonderful  resources  of  wit 
and  sarcasm  to  assail  ‘  superstition,’  under  which  term  he  included 
not  only  perversions  and  abuses  in  current  conceptions  of  Chris¬ 
tianity,  but  also  the  distinctive  facts  and  doctrines  of  Christianity 
itself.  A  step  farther  was  taken  by  Condillac  (1715-80),  build¬ 
ing  upon  the  premises  of  Locke,  who,  as  he  judged,  had  failed  to 
press  to  its  proper  conclusion  the  proposition  that  all  mental  states 
spring  from  sensation.  Self-love,  Condillac  taught,  is  the  source 
of  all  our  inclinations,  whether  evil  or  good.  Man’s  superiority 
to  the  brute  is  largely  owing  to  his  possession  of  language. 
Yet  he  does  not  go  so  far  as  to  assert  the  materiality  of  the 
soul  or  to  deny  the  being  of  God.  Helvetius  (1715-71),  in  his 
work  On  the  Mind ,  carries  out  the  idea  of  Condillac  respecting 
the  principle  of  self-love,  by  tracing  in  detail  all  virtue  to  self- 
interest,  and  identifying  morality  with  selfishness.  The  deism 
of  Voltaire  was  followed  by  the  materialism  and  atheism  of  the 

492 


MODERN  THEOLOGY  •  493 

“  Encyclopaedists,”  —  so  called  from  the  title  of  the  copious  work 
of  Diderot  and  D’Alembert,  the  Encyclopedic ,  which  was  sympa¬ 
thetic  with  these  extremes  of  infidelity.  They  were  explicitly  set 
forth  in  The  System  of  Nature ,  of  which  Baron  Holbach  (1723- 
1789),  a  German  by  birth,  was  the  author.  God,  freedom,  and 
immortality  are  treated  as  chimeras,  and  duty  is  resolved  into 
a  form  of  self-gratification. 

Against  these  debasing  opinions  Rousseau  protested  in  the 
Savoyard  Vicar's  Profession  of  Faith  (contained  in  Emile'). 
The  fundamental  truths  of  religion  rest  upon  our  feeling  of 
their  truth,  although  dogmatic  atheism  and  materialism  may  be 
met  by  reasoning  as  cogent  as  the  pleas  in  their  favor.  The 
authority  of  conscience  is  stamped  upon  the  heart  of  man. 
When  we  examine  the  evidences  of  Christianity,  we  are  left  in 
doubts  and  difficulties.  Reasons  on  one  side  are  balanced  by 
reasons  on  the  other.  But  the  heart  speaks  with  a  convincing 
voice,  affirming  the  inspiration  of  the  Scriptures  and  that  Jesus 
is  more  than  man.  The  moral  excellence  which  tie  exhibited' 
in  precept  and  example,  when  the  time  and  place  in  which 
He  lived  are  considered,  could  not  have  had  a  human  origin. 
Despite  oscillation  and  an  excess  of  sentiment  in  his  utterances 
respecting  religion,  Rousseau  anticipates  in  a  more  indefinite 
way  the  ideas  of  Kant  in  his  Practical  Reaso?i. 

In  a  work  like  the  present  some  notice  should  be  taken  of  the 
tenets  of  Emanuel  Swedenborg,  although  it  has  the  appearance  of 
a  digression.  Swedenborg  was  born  in  1688.  Well  educated,  he 
was  a  remarkable  proficient  in  mathematical  and  physical  science, 
combining  scientific  insight  with  practical  skill.  In  1743  he  first 
believed  himself  to  have  a  vision  of  Christ  and  direct  intercourse, 
through  angels  and  by  immediate  perception,  with  supernatural 
states  of  existence.  By  special  illumination  he  was  qualified  to 
unveil  their  nature  and  to  set  forth  the  true  theology.  He  was  a 
voluminous  writer.  In  the  Arcana  Coelestia  and  elsewhere  he 
expounds  his  system.  The  universe  is  one  whole,  the  outward 
world  being  the  counterpart  of  the  inward  and  spiritual.  There 
is  a  correspondence  between  the  two.  Nature  is  a  parable.  In 
the  Bible  beneath  the  literal  sense,  there  is  the  occult,  spiritual 
meaning,  the  Word  of  God,  open  to  the  discerning.  Swedenborg 
dissents  in  many  points  from  the  ordinary  church  theology.  He 
denounces  without  stint  the  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith  alone, 


494 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


as  set  forth  in  the  current  Lutheran  teaching.1  God  is  in  His 
essence  Love  and  Wisdom.  There  is  an  approach  to  an  ideal 
theory  of  matter.  God  is  a  single  person.  The  idea  of  an  imma¬ 
nent  Trinity  is  rejected.  There  was  no  Trinity  before  the  creation. 
Jesus  derived  His  body  from  Mary.  That  which  is  divine  in  Christ 
is  the  Father,  the  name  of  God  after  He  has  “  assumed  the 
human  ”  ;  the  divine  in  this  connection  with  the  human  is  the 
Son ;  the  divine  which  proceeds  from  Him  is  the  Holy  Spirit. 
Thus  the  Trinity  is  in  Christ.  Christ  was  victor  over  the  powers 
of  hell.  A  substitutionary  atonement  is  rejected.  Christ  is  glori¬ 
fied,  and,  through  Him,  the  divine  man,  we  have  the  true  idea  of 
God  and  are  conjoined  by  love  to  Him.  A  physical  resurrection 
is  discarded.  At  death  the  eyes  are  opened  to  the  spiritual  world 
in  which  we  exist  now.  After  death  men  live  essentially  as  they 
lived  here.  At  length  they  are  drawn  by  their  affinities  to  hell  or 
to  heaven.  Angels  are  the  spirits  of  departed  human  beings. 

It  is  in  Germany,  eminently  “  the  land  of  scholars,”  that  in  these 
’latter  days,  theological  thought,  as  well  as  investigation,  has  more 
than  elsewhere  flourished.  The  history  of  German  theology  in  the 
modern  period  comprises  in  it  a  record  of  the  different  types  of 
“  Rationalism  ”  which  have  appeared,  together  with  a  sketch  of  the 
counter-movements  in  the  exposition  and  defence  of  the  evan¬ 
gelical  cause.  Rationalism  is  a  word  of  not  very  exact  meaning, 
but  it  is  used  to  designate  the  partial  or  total  denial  of  the  fact  of 
Revelation,  or  the  rejection  of  the  Scriptures  as  the  rule  of  faith, 
or,  still  further,  the  discarding  of  what  have  been  generally  termed 
the  principles  of  natural  religion. 

The  first  era  of  Rationalism  was  the  period  when  the  Anglo-French 
deism  was  dominant.  It  was  the  age  of  Frederick  the  Great,  who 
began  to  reign  in  1740  and  died  in  1786.  The  sway  of  France, 
in  opinions  as  well  as  in  respect  to  language  and  manners,  pre¬ 
vailed  on  the  Continent.  Frederick  was  himself  a  disciple  of  the 
school  of  Voltaire,  who  resided  for  a  time  at  his  court,  and 
corrected  the  bad  French  of  his  verses.  It  was  the  period  of 
“  illuminism  ”  in  Europe,  styled  by  the  Germans  the  period  of 
Aufklarung.  The  reign  of  superstition,  it  was  thought,  was  now 
at  an  end.  Darkness  was  giving  way  to  the  broad  sunlight  of  a 
new  day.  Living  faith  in  Christianity,  however,  did  not  perish. 
It  survived  in  Pietism,  the  name  derisively  applied  to  the  religious 

1  See,  e.g.,  The  True  Christian  Religion ,  §§  98,  181,  389. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


495 


spirit  of  those  who  set  a  value,  and  the  highest  value,  on  the 
religion  of  personal  experience,  but  with  less  than  a  just  respect 
for  thought  and  science.  It  survived  in  the  Moravians,  the 
followers  of  Zinzendorf  (1700-60),  with  whom  Christ  and  the 
Atonement  had  a  central  place,  and  whose  love  and  zeal  operated 
as  a  leaven  beyond  their  ranks.  Among  them  the  worship  of 
Christ  was  sometimes  too  exclusive  to  conform  to  the  Apostolic 
standard,  and  was  one  of  the  peculiarities  which  incurred  the 
censure  of  such  truly  Christian  scholars  in  the  Lutheran  Church 
as  Bengel,  the  author  of  that  admirable  commentary  of  the  New 
Testament,  the  Gnomon . 

In  this  period  falls  the  career  of  the  great  poet  and  critic, 
Lessing,  who  mingled  in  the  religious  controversies  of  the  time. 
He  believed  with  deists,  that  true  religion  is  a  religion  of  reason. 
He  dissented  from  them  in  holding  that  religion  reaches  the 
rational  stage,  the  stage  when  its  truths  are  discerned  as  founded 
in  reason,  only  at  the  end  of  a  course  of  development.  Positive 
religions  precede  and  lead  up  to  this  goal.  But  the  historical  and 
statutory  part  of  religion  is  like  a  shell,  the  result  of  an  organic 
growth,  and  not  superimposed  from  without.  This  integument 
is  dropped  off  by  degrees  until  religion  in  its  rational  content  or 
essence  remains,  having  and  needing  no  other  support  than  its 
recognized  reasonableness.  He  begins  his  suggestive  essay  on  the 
“  Education  of  the  Human  Race  ”  with  the  remark  that  “  Revela¬ 
tion,  in  the  case  of  the  entire  human  race,  is  what  education  is  in 
the  case  of  the  individual.”1  Education  gives  nothing  which  the 
individual  could  not  have  from  himself,  only  it  gives  “  more 
quickly  and  more  easily.”  The  same  is  true  of  revelation.  As 
in  education,  so  in  revelation,  there  is  an  order  and  a  progress. 
A  particular  people  was  chosen  for  a  special  education.2  God 
caused  Himself  to  be  disclosed  to  them  by  degrees.  He  did 
not  commit  the  fault  of  a  vain  pedagogue,  whose  teaching  is 
beyond  the  capacity  of  the  pupil.  The  experiences  of  the  Israel¬ 
ite,  out  of  his  own  land  “  with  other  children,”  helped  him  to 
some  knowledge.  “  A  better  pedagogue  must  come,  and  take 
the  exhausted  elementary  book  out  of  his  hands.  —  Christ  came.” 3 
The  reason  of  the  race  in  pupilage  had  advanced.  The  New 
Testament  is  a  second,  a  better,  elementary  book  for  the  race. 

1  Werke  (Boxberger’s  ed.),  Vol.  XII.  p.  348. 

2  Ibid.  p.  349.  3  Ibid.  p.  361. 


496 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


It  was  necessary  that  every  people  should  for  a  while  regard  it 
as  the  ne  plus  ultra  of  its  knowledge.1  Just  as  we  can  dispense, 
as  to  the  doctrine  of  the  unity  of  God,  with  the  Old  Testament, 
and,  as  to  the  doctrine  of  immortality,  with  the  New,  so  will  it  be 
as  to  the  other  Biblical  truths.  So  it  is,  Lessing  attempts  to  show, 
in  regard  to  the  Trinity,  to  which  he  offers  what  he  thinks  a 
philosophical  equivalent,2  as  also  to  the  doctrines  of  Original  Sin3 
and  the  Satisfaction  of  Christ.4  What  if  here  we  have  taken  all 
the  steps  towards  perfection  that  temporal  rewards  and  penalties 
can  lead  to?  “  Is  not  all  eternity  mine?”5  In  Lessing’s  post¬ 
humous  essays  and  fragments  of  essays,  there  are  interesting  state¬ 
ments  indicative  of  his  opinions.  He  distinguishes  between  “  the 
religion  of  Christ,”  the  religion  which  He  as  a  man  recognized 
and  practised,  and  “  the  Christian  religion,”  which  assumes  as 
true  that  He  was  more  than  a  man,  and  “  as  such  makes  Him  an 
object  of  worship.”  The  religion  in  the  Gospels  is  not  the  Chris¬ 
tian,  but  the  religion  of  Christ.  The  latter  is  clearly  set  forth. 
As  to  the  former,  two  men  will  hardly  ever,  as  long  as  the  world 
stands,  be  found  to  attach  to  it  the  same  meaning.6  Respecting 
the  evidences  of  Christianity,  proof  from  miracles  avails  only  to 
the  Apostles  and  their  contemporaries.  Lessing  is  at  pains  to  show 
that  the  Gospel  was  taught  before  the  New  Testament  was  writ¬ 
ten.  Christ,  not  the  Scriptures,  is  the  primary  object  of  belief. 
In  the  drama  of  Nathan  the  Wise,  a  Jew,  Mohammedan,  and 
Christian  are  brought  together  in  the  time  of  the  Crusades.  The 
lesson  from  the  spirit  of  Nathan,  the  Jew,  is  that  one’s  creed  is  of 
little  moment,  provided  there  is  a  temper  of  charity  and  tolerance. 
Lessing  published  the  Wolfenbuttel  Fragments ,  purporting  to  be 
from  a  manuscript  of  an  unknown  author,  found  in  the  library  of 
Wolfenbuttel,  of  which  he  had  charge.  It  was  really  the  work  of 
Reimarus,  a  physician.  It  was  an  attack  on  the  credibility  of  the 
Gospels.  The  greatest  excitement  was  occasioned  by  it.  Lessing 
defended  the  right  and  expediency  of  publishing  the  book,  in  the 
interest  of  free  discussion,  and  in  opposition  to  an  orthodox  Ham¬ 
burg  pastor,  Goze.  He  himself  wrote  an  essay,  showing  much  re¬ 
search,  on  the  Evangelists  considered  as  merely  human  historians.7 

1  Werke  (Boxberger’s  ed.),  Vol.  XII.  p.  363.  4  Ibid.  p.  366. 

2  Ibid.  p.  364.  5  Ibid.  p.  370. 

3  Ibid.  p.  365.  6  Voi  XIII.  pp.  475,  476. 

7  It  is  in  the  Nachlasse,  Werke ,  Vol.  XIII.  p.  350  sq.,  “Neue  Hypothesen,”  etc. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


497 


The  period  of  “  illumination  ”  in  Biblical  and  historical  criti¬ 
cism,  although  it  had  its  forerunner  in  the  Socinian  and  Arminian 
scholars,  was  opened  by  Semler  (1725-91),  a  contemporary  of 
Lessing.  In  Germany,  says  Tholuck,  “  it  is  Semler  by  whom,  in 
the  whole  expanse  of  Biblical  and  historical  criticism,  traditional 
assumptions  and  opinions  are  combated,  now  the  text  of  the  Bible 
attacked,  now  the  genuineness  of  Biblical  books  contested,  now 
the  foundation  of  received  views  respecting  the  Church  and  the 
history  of  doctrines  taken  away.”  Zeal  for  exploration  in  all  these 
directions  was  kindled  in  all  the  German  universities.  Among 
the  critics,  Eichhorn  (1752-1827),  for  fifty-two  years  a  teacher  at 
Jena  and  Gottingen,  brought  forward  suggestions  and  problems 
without  number  which  stimulated  thought  and  demanded  solution. 
For  example,  the  documentary  hypothesis  as  to  the  composition 
of  Genesis,  first  propounded  by  Astruc,  was  introduced  into  Eich- 
horn’s  Introduction  to  the  Old  Testament.  The  way  was  opened 
for  the  discussions  relative  to  the  authorship  of  the  Pentateuch 
and  of  Joshua,  in  which,  in  later  times,  De  Wette,  Bleek,  Ewald, 
Hupfeld,  and,  more  recently,  Kuenen,  Graf,  Reuss,  Wellhausen, 
and  many  others,  have  taken  part.  In  the  period  of  Semler  and 
Eichhorn,  there  were  not  wanting  orthodox  men  of  distinction, 
such  as  Michaelis,  Ernesti,  Mosheim,  but  their  orthodoxy  was  of 
a  dry  and  unspiritual  kind,  —  a  “  theology  of  the  understand¬ 
ing,”  as  the  Germans  commonly  characterize  it. 

It  was  inevitable  that  a  powerful  influence  on  the  course  of 
theology  —  an  influence  not  confined  to  his  own  country  and 
time  —  should  be  exerted  by  the  foremost  philosopher  of  modern 
days,  Immanuel  Kant  (1722-1804).  He  began  as  an  adherent 
of  the  philosophy  of  Leibnitz  in  the  form  in  which  it  was  cast  by 
Wolf.  The  speculations  of  Hume  awoke  him  from  his  “  dog¬ 
matic  slumber,”  and  compelled  him  to  inquire  for  a  basis  of 
knowledge  not  resting  on  unverified  assumptions,  or  leading  to 
universal  skepticism.  He  was  thus  prompted  to  examine  the 
mind  itself  as  an  organ  of  knowledge,  and  in  the  Critique  of 
Pure  Reason  to  undertake  to  distinguish  between  that  which  is 
contributed  by  the  object  and  by  the  knowing  instrument,  the 
mind  itself — between  the  objective  and  subjective  sources  of 
knowledge.  By  the  criteria  of  universality  and  necessity  we  are 
assured  that  while  objects  of  perception  —  “the  thing  in  itself”  — 
are  real  and  external,  the  “  forms  ”  of  perception,  space  and  time, 


498 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


are  purely  subjective.  By  the  same  criteria,  we  are  assured  that 
the  “  categories,”  or  concepts,  by  which  the  understanding,  the 
faculty  of  judging,  connects  the  objects  of  perception  into  an 
orderly  experience,  are  likewise  subjective,  and  belong  to  the 
constitution  or  mechanism  of  the  knowing  agent.  For  example, 
cause  is  not  a  function  of  things,  an  external  power  binding 
together  antecedent  and  consequent ;  nor  is  it,  as  Hume  said,  a 
mere  result  of  customary  association,  an  objectified  product  of 
fancy.  It  is  a  necessary  mode  of  our  mental  activity  in  contact 
with  phenomena,  —  for  it  is  only  of  phenomena,  not  of  the  nou- 
mena  behind  them,  that  we  have  cognizance.  Only  the  world  as 
it  is  related  to  the  mind  can  we  know.  The  legitimate  action  of 
the  understanding  through  the  a  priori  concepts  or  categories 
“  hath  this  extent,  no  more.”  But  there  is  a  third  department  of 
mental  activity,  —  the  Reason.  We  seek  to.  unify  the  knowledge 
acquired  by  experience  —  acquired  through  the  understanding. 
Thence  arise  ideas  or  suggestions,  the  presuppositions  of  all  our 
judgments.  The  ultimate-premises  implied  in  the  different  forms 
of  syllogism  give  us  these  ideas.  They  are  the  unconditioned 
subject,  the  ego,  not  capable  of  being  a  predicate ;  the  world,  as 
a  complete  series  of  conditions  resting  on  nothing  beyond  itself ; 
God,  the  supreme  condition  of  “  the  possibility  of  all  realities.” 
But  while  we  are  thus  brought,  as  it  were,  to  the  threshold  of  a 
supernatural  realm,  we  are  stopped  there.  The  reality  of  the 
objects  thus  suggested  by  reason  is  not  only  unverifiable,  as 
beyond  experience;  it  is  inconceivable.  For  the  moment  it  is 
assumed  and  reasoned  upon,  we  land  in  antinomies  —  in  dilem¬ 
mas,  each  branch  of  which  in  every  case  is  demonstrable,  yet 
each  is  the  contradiction  of  the  other.  The  mind  is  straying 
beyond  its  province.  Thus  Kant  argues  that  freedom  and  neces¬ 
sity  are  each  provable,  but  each  inconsistent  with  the  other.  He 
considers  the  proofs  of  the  being  of  God  untenable.  The  onto¬ 
logical  proof  is  a  fallacy,  a  thing  being  inferred  from  a  thought ; 
the  cosmological  has  to  fall  back  on  the  ontological  for  support.;' 
and  even  the  argument  of  design  is  not  demonstrative,  and  at  the 
best  could  not  establish  the  infinitude  of  the  divine  attributes. 
Rational  psychology,  rational  cosmology,  and  rational  theology 
have  no  foothold.  The  upshot  of  the  Kantian  achievement  is  the 
organization  of  skepticism. 

But  in  the  Practical  Reason ,  that  which  is  lost  is  recovered. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


499 


The  moral  nature  testifies  to  God,  freedom,  and  immortality.  I 
ought ,  and,  if  I  ought,  it  is  true  that  I  can .  I  am  made  for  virtue 
and  for  happiness,  two  ends.  Of  this  I  am  conscious.  Then 
there  is  a  Moral  Governor  by  whom  these  ends  are  made  to  coin¬ 
cide,  and  an  immortality,  the  scene  of  their  junction.  The  free¬ 
dom  of  which  I  am  possessed  is  the  power  of  determining  the 
will  by  the  moral  law,  uninfluenced  by  the  desires.  The  Practical 
Reason  gives  the  rule  :  “  So  act  that  your  act  can  be  generalized 
into  a  maxim  ” ;  that  is,  will  nothing  that  you  cannot  will  as  uni¬ 
versal.  Religion,  according  to  Kant,  is  the  recognition  of  our 
duties  as  divine  commands.  It  is  throughout  ethical  and  legal. 
It  is  the  “  categorical  imperative  ”  that  is  exalted.  There  is  no 
place  for  Love,  the  content  of  the  law.  It  is  in  his  Religion 
within  the  Bounds  of  Pure  Reaso7i  that  we  find  the  exposition  of 
Kant’s  religious  views.  In  consonance  with  the  thought  of  Lessing, 
whatever  in  religion  is  exterior  to  ethics,  whether  it  be  facts  or 
doctrines,— the  “  statutory  faith,”  —  is  simply  valuable  on  account 
of  the  weakness' of  human  nature.  As  reason  becomes  more 
mature,  and  as  the  moral  sense  comes  to  exercise  control,  every¬ 
thing  not  recognized  and  verified  by  reason  will  cease  to  be  of  any 
account.  Even  now  we  must  deduce  from  Scripture  in  our  inter¬ 
pretations  that,  and  that  only,  which  conforms  to  universal  morality. 
Kant  holds  that  the  subjection  of  the  will  to  the  propensities,  as  it 
must  be  self-originated,  implies  an  Ur-bose ,  a  transcendental  act  of 
which  it  is  the  result,  an  act  independent  of  our  present  conscious¬ 
ness  or  memory.  The  new  birth  is  the  reversal  of  that  underlying 
disposition  of  the  will.  The  Son  of  God  is  the  ideal  of  the  per¬ 
fect  man.  Saving  faith  is  the  belief  in  that  ideal  which  is  repre¬ 
sented  in  Christ.  It  is  not  the  belief  in  historical  circumstances 
respecting  Him.  The  various  doctrines  of  the  Christian  system 
are  subjected  to  a  transformation  of  the  same  general  character. 
The  Church  is  a  community  for  mutual  help  in  the  practice  of 
virtue.  It  is  thus  a  family  of  the  children  of  God.  Any  service 
of  God  beyond  the  service  of  morality  is  either  superfluous  and 
sometimes  practically  harmful,  or  a  useful  crutch  for  the  weak. 
Belief  in  divine  influences  on  the  soul  can  neither  be  approved  nor 
denied.  Belief  in  miracles  cannot  be  sustained  by  proof,  and  is 
not  helpful  in  the  performance  of  duty. 

The  teaching  of  Kant  on  the  moral  side  was  a  most  healthful 
rebuke  of  the  lax  tone  and  low  ideals  of  the  deistic  illuminism. 


5°o 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


Its  bracing  atmosphere  was  wholesome  for  many  minds.  But  it 
brought  in  a  type  of  rationalism  in  which  the  distinctively  religious 
character  of  Christianity  was  eclipsed  or  subordinated  to  an  ethical 
legalism,  and  in  which  the  miraculous  parts  of  the  Gospel  narra¬ 
tives  were  interpreted  out  of  them  by  such  devices  as  the  pushing 
of  the  notion  of  accommodation  on  the  part  of  Christ  Himself  to 
a  groundless  extreme.  Misconceptions  of  an  absurd  nature  were 
attributed  to  the  Apostles  to  account  for  their  testimony.  Paulus 
(1761-1848)  was  the  most  conspicuous  example  of  this  style 
of  exegesis.  In  dogmatic  theology,  Wegscheider  (1771-1848) 
believed  in  a  high  providential  mission  of  Jesus,  but  resolved 
the  miracles  into  mistakes  of  witnesses  and  reporters.  Other 
prominent  exponents  of  this  general  type  of  teaching  were  Rohr 
(1777-1848)  and  Bretschneider  (1776-1848).  Even  preachers 
like  Reinhard  (1753-1812),  and  theologians  like  Storr  (1746- 
1805),  while  not  adopting  the  Kantian  theology,  were  affected  by 
its  influence. 

•  t 

A  system  which  made  religion  a  function  of  the  will  and  exalted 
the  behest  of  conscience  in  such  a  way  as  to  leave  no  verification 
of  the  truths  of  religion  in  the  voices  of  the  heart  —  such  a  lofty 
but  barren  legalism  could  not  but  evoke  dissent  and  a  reaction. 
Prominent  in  proclaiming  the  high  place  that  belongs  to  feeling 
in  religion  was  Herder  (1744-1803).  If  not  an  exact  and  self- 
consistent  thinker,  he  was  fertile  in  quickening  suggestions,  full  of 
a  genial  enthusiasm,  and  versatile,  a  poet  of  merit  and  an  elo¬ 
quent  preacher.  He  exerted  a  kindling  influence  in  every  direc¬ 
tion.  In  his  book  on  the  Spirit  of  Hebrew  Poetry,  and  in  various 
other  writings,  he  impressed  his  readers  with  the  sublimity  and 
attractiveness  of  the  Scriptures,  although  a  somewhat  undue  stress 
was  laid  upon  their  aesthetic  and  literary  charm.  Without  reject¬ 
ing  the  facts  of  revelation,  he  dwells  on  their  spiritual  import. 
He  is  interested  in  the  allegorical  significance  of  Biblical  narra¬ 
tives.  He  assumes  a  primitive  revelation  to  communicate  to  men 
language  and  the  foundations  of  knowledge.  His  principal  work 
is  the  Ideas  towards  a  Philosophy  of  the  History  of  Ma?ikind. 
Nature  is  looked  upon  as  a  progressive  development  looking 
towards  man  as  the  goal.  So  there  is  an  ascending  development 
of  mankind.  But  development  is  not  a  genetic  evolution  of 
organisms,  as  in  recent  theories  of  natural  science.  The  lower 
stage  prefigures  the  stage  that  follows.  Reason  directly  recog- 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


501 


nizes  God  as  the  Supreme  Reason,  the  primary  cause  and  the 
bond  of  all  things.  As  man’s  development  is  incomplete  here, 
we  are  warranted  in  our  expectation  of  immortality.  Christ  knows 
God  as  His  Father  and  all  men  as  His  brethren,  and  is  thus  the 
ideal  man.  Inspiration  is  the  enlivening  of  all  the  higher  powers 
of  the  human  soul.  There  are  nobler  impulses  of  action  than 
mere  law.  Such  are  love  and  the  enthusiasm  of  truth.  With 
the  traditional  dogmatic  construction  of  the  Christian  teaching 
Herder  has  no  sympathy.  Less  indefinite  than  Herder’s  pro¬ 
test  against  Kant’s  philosophy  of  religion  was  the  protest  of 
Jacobi  (1743-1819).  He  agreed  that  the  fundamental  truths 
of  natural  religion  are  indemonstrable.  They  are  objects  of  an 
immediate  belief,  a  belief  spontaneous,  inspired  by  a  necessity  of 
feeling  and  connected  with  a  spiritual  craving.  This  instinctive 
faith  is  an  act  of  Reason.  Reason  is  not,  as  according  to  Kant, 
merely  regulative ;  it  is  intuitive.  “  Nature  conceals  God ;  ”  it 
is  a  chain  of  efficient  causes,  excluding  both  chance  and  provi¬ 
dence.  “  Man  reveals  God.”  As  he  is  conscious  of  a  power 
within  him  which  is  independent  of  nature,  superior  to  nature, 
“  so  has  he  a  belief  in  God,  a  feeling,  an  experience  of  His 
existence.”1  Jacobi’s  exposition  of  his  ideas  in  the  book  Of  the 
Divine  Things  had  a  great  number  of  sympathetic  readers  who 
were  repelled  by  the  frigid  rationalism  of  the  Kantian  School. 

Thenceforward,  there  appear  two  streams  in  the  field  of  Ger¬ 
man  thought,  a  believing  Christian  theology,  founded  on  the 
recognition  of  a  “  consciousness  of  God,”  indigenous  in  the  soul, 
and  a  speculative  Pantheism,  the  fruit  of  a  modification,  in  this 
direction,  of  Kant’s  philosophy. 

1  Jacobi,  IVerke ,  Vol.  III.  pp.  424-426. 


CHAPTER  VI 


schleiermacher’s  theological  system 


Herder  and  Jacobi  were  only  forerunners  of  a  prince  among 
theologians,  an  extraordinary  genius,  who  exerted  an  influence 
proportionate  to  his  powers,  Frederic  Schleiermacher  (1768- 
1834).  He  early  received  deep  religious  impressions  from  the 
Moravians.  He  was  a  philosopher  who  was  excelled  by  none  in 
dialectic  and  speculative  ability.  His  translation  of  all  Plato’s 
writings  is  only  one  evidence  of  his  interest  in  metaphysical 
studies.  Mingled  with  the  powerful  Christian  influence  in  deter¬ 
mining  the  cast  of  his  thought  was  an  early  and  lasting  attraction 
exerted  by  the  doctrine  of  Spinoza.  On  the  one  hand,  a  deep 
appreciation  of  Christ  as  the  Redeemer,  a  rare  insight,  in  whatever 
respects  it  may  be  defective,  into  His  character  and  office  among 
men,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  speculative  difficulties  in  conceiving 
of  God  as  possessed  of  attributes  of  personality  — -  these  are  the 
two  facts  explanatory  of  Schleiermacher’s  system.  His  Discourses 
on  Religion  to  the  Cultivated  among  its  Despisers  (1799)  and  his 
Monologues  (1800),  vague  as  they  are  in  respect  to  doctrine,  are 
an  impressive,  and  proved  an  effective,  appeal  in  behalf  of  spiritual 
religion  as  the  true  life  of  the  soul.  His  principal  theological  work, 
a  consecutive  exposition  of  his  system,  is  The  Christian  Faith  — 
Der  christliche  Glauhe  (1822). 

In  this  “  epoch-making  ”  treatise  the  author  sets  aside  the  ration¬ 
alistic  dogmatics  as  identifying  religion  with  ethics,  the  orthodox 
dogmatics  as  comprising  propositions  not  involved  in  Christian 
experience,  and  as  deducing  its  contents  from  no  single  principle. 
Dogmatics  is  a  theological  science.  As  such  it  is  related  to  the 
Church.  What  is  the  Church?  It  is  a  society,  a  communion 
(' Gemeinschaft ),  based  on  piety.  This  is  the  bond  of  union.  What 
is  piety  ?  It  is  not  a  function  of  the  knowing  faculty,  for  its  seat  is 

5°2 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


503 


not  the  intellect,  nor  of  the  will.  We  are  always  carried  back  of 
the  voluntary  act  to  the  impulse  behind  it  (. Antrieb ).  The  seat  of 
piety  is  feeling.  But  what  specifically  is  the  feeling  which  consti¬ 
tutes  piety?  It  is  the  feeling  of  absolute  dependence.  It  is  not 
the  feeling  of  freedom  ;  it  is  not  the  feeling  of  relative  dependence 
which  we  have  towards  the  world,  or  finite  things  about  us.  In  feel¬ 
ing,  the  soul  is  closely  united  with  the  object  —  in  the  embrace  of 
its  object.  In  knowing,  the  object  stands  over  against  the  subject ; 
it  is  defined.  The  feeling  of  absolute  dependence  coexists  with 
the  feeling  of  relative  dependence.  It  is  in  the  due  relation  of 
these  feelings,  the  dominating,  determining  power  of  the  former 
that  piety  consists.  They  are  the  “  consciousness  of  God  ”  and 
“  the  consciousness  of  the  world.”  It  is  by  this  postulate  of  piety  as 
purely  subjective,  that  not  only  at  the  outset,  but  always,  Schleier- 
macher  steers  clear  of  his  speculative  difficulties  connected  with 
theism.  Christian  piety  is  the  piety  which  is  conscious  of  being 
related  to  Christ  as  its  author,  of  itself  as  an  effect  of  the  soul’s 
connection  with  Him.  The  Church,  as  the  society  of  the  religious, 
is  an  organism  whose  members  are  active  and  passive,  who  give 
and  receive  religious  impressions  (Erregungen) . 

The  function  of  Dogmatic  Theology  can  now  be  stated*.  Its 
principle  is  the  feeling  of  absolute  dependence  in  its  relation  to 
Christ.  It  is  the  statement  of  the  contents  of  Christian  experience. 
Nothing  else  has  any  place  in  this  science.  Other  facts  and  doc¬ 
trines  belong  elsewhere  —  to  Ethics  or  to  other  branches  of  knowl¬ 
edge.  Dogmatics  considers,  first,  the  pious  experience  ( Go  ties - 
bewusstsein)  in  itself;  secondly,  the  development  of  the  sinful 
experience  or  principle ;  and  thirdly,  the  consciousness  of  grace, 
or  the  inward  experience  of  redemption,  as  related  to  Christ. 

I.  It  is  not  creation ,  but  divine  preservation,  that  is  involved  in 
the  religious  feeling,  the  sense  of  absolute  dependence.  Creation 
from  eternity  is  the  true  conception,  God  having  no  relation  to 
time.  And  the  only  attribute  to  be  ascribed  to  God,  on  the 
foundation  of  the  religious  feeling,  is  primal  causal  agency  ( urs'dch - 
lichkeit).  The  world  as  a  totality  is  referred  to  God,  not  anything 
singly  considered.  He  is  the  immanent  cause  of  the  world.  His 
omnipotence  only  signifies  that  all  separate  causes,  manifestations 
of  power,  are  referable  to  Him.  It  is  not  implied  in  the  religious 
feeling  that  there  is  in  God  surplus,  unexerted  power.  His  om¬ 
niscience  signifies  that  His  agency  is  a  living  power  ;  but  this  is  all. 


$04 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


Plans  and  execution  of  plans  are  not  to  be  attributed  to  Him. 
The  activity  designated  as  omniscience  is  not  to  be  distinguished 
from  omnipotence. 

II.  Sin  is  the  predominance,  the  victory,  of  the  flesh  over  the 
spirit.  It  consists  in  the  subordination,  the  subjugation,  of  the  re¬ 
ligious  feeling  under  the  lower  nature,  or  worldliness.  This  condi¬ 
tion  as  common  to  the  race  is  Original  Sin.  It  is  the  natural 
condition  of  all  men  from  the  beginning.  Thus  there  is  no  real 
distinction  between  sin,  and  the  consciousness  of  sin.  Adam  was 
like  us  in  this  respect :  there  was  no  fall  from  holiness.  Here  the 
creeds  are  said  to  be  in  error. 

III.  Christ  is  distinguished  from  other  men  by  the  absolute 
control  from  the  start  of  the  religious  feeling  —  the  sense  of  God. 
He  is  sinless,  yet  His  character  made  progress  by  continual  victories 
as  the  appetencies  of  nature  unfolded  themselves.  His  continu¬ 
ous  and  perfect  religiousness  is  the  indwelling  of  God  in  Christ 
and  is  the  peculiarity  of  His  person. 

His  person  is  supernatural  as  not  explicable  by  circumstances, 
by  His  environment,  but  only  by  reference  to  an  act  of  God. 
This,  however,  is  not  to  be  understood  as  an  interposition  in  time. 
It  is  nature  as  a  whole,  or  the  race,  which  evolves  this  person  at  a 
particular  time.  We  are  not  required,  therefore,  to  deny  that  He 
had  a  human  father.  In  Christ  the  human  is  wholly  passive  and 
receptive.  The  formula  that  He  had  a  divine  nature  is  question¬ 
able,  since  nature  implies  passivity.  The  perfection  of  Christ  is 
in  the  religiotis  province.  He  must,  moreover,  express  Himself 
through  national  peculiarities  and  modes  of  thought.  He  is  not 
properly  styled  the  Example  (  Vorbild ),  but  the  Type,  of  Mankind. 
He  realizes  in  Himself  the  ideal  of  man. 

To  Schleiermacher,  Christ  is  the  Source  of  a  new  spiritual  life  of 
communion  with  God,  first  realized  in  the  Saviour  Himself,  and 
from  Him  communicated  to  those  who  are  drawn  out  of  them¬ 
selves  into  fellowship  with  Him.  But  this  effect  is  conditioned  on 
the  entering  of  the  individual  within  the  historically  constituted 
sphere  of  the  Saviour’s  influence,  the  community  of  believers.  It 
is  not  the  effect  of  a  direct,  supernatural  act  of  Christ  in  relation 
to  the  individual.  Christ  is  compared  to  an  individual  in  whom 
the  idea  of  the  State  should  first  come  to  consciousness,  and  who 
should  gather  the  unorganized  mass  of  men  from  the  state  of 
nature  into  a  civil  community  by  taking  them  up  into  a  participa- 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


505 


tion  in  this  new  life  —  the  life  of  citizenship.  The  redemptive 
agency  of  Chris.;  consists  in  the  imparting  to  men,  through  the 
attractive  power  which  He  exerts  upon  them,  that  inward  con¬ 
sciousness  of  fellowship  with  God  ( Gottesbewusstsein )  which  in 
Him  is  absolutely  controlling,  and  holds  every  other  feeling  in  due 
subordination  to  itself.  His  atoning  work  is  the  communication  to 
them  of  His  own  undisturbed  blessedness,  which  is  the  concomi¬ 
tant  of  this  filial  communion  with  God.  Christ  receives  the 
believer  to  be  a  partaker  of  His  holiness  and  blessedness  —  of  His 
inward  spiritual  life.  He  acts  upon  men  to  this  end.  God  looks 
upon  the  sinner,  not  as  he  is  actually,  but  as  he  is  in  virtue  of  his 
relation  to  Christ  —  as  he  is  ideally,  as  he  will  be  when  the  process 
which  has  begun  is  complete.  Sin  still  exists  in  him,  but  as  a 
vanishing  element. 

'The  union  of  the  believer  with  Christ  brings  the  forgiveness  of 
sin ;  since,  the  principle  of  sin  being  itself  destroyed  at  the  root, 
sin  being  driven,  as  it  were,  from  the  centre  to  the  circumference 
of  the  character,  evil  or  pain  does  not  break  up  the  harmony  of 
the  inward  life ;  if  the  disciple  suffered,  the  Master  suffered  like¬ 
wise  :  and  evil,  including  death,  loses  its  punitive  aspect,  and  is 
transmuted  into  chastisement,  or  a  merciful  infliction.  Forgive¬ 
ness  does  not  free  from  suffering ;  it  simply  changes  its  effect  and 
its  significance.  The  sufferings  of  Christ  are  not  directly  essential 
to  His  work  as  a  Saviour.  They  are  needful,  first,  as  His  devotion 
to  the  work  of  founding  the  new  kingdom  could  be  manifested  in 
its  fulness  only  by  His  not  giving  way  to  the  utmost  resistance, 
even  to  that  which  involved  the  destruction  of  His  person ;  and, 
secondly,  because  His  blessedness  could  only  appear  in  its  perfec¬ 
tion  in  the  continuance  of  it  through  the  most  extreme  suffering, 
even  that  which  grew  out  of  the  withstanding  of  sin,  and  out  of 
His  own  fellow-feeling  with  sinful  men,  which  attended  this  most 
bitter  experience,  f 

In  the  exposition  of  the  priestly  office  of  Christ,  Schleiermacher 
fully  develops  the  idea  sketched  above.  “  The  fact  that  only  what 
Christ  does  corresponds  perfectly  to  the  divine  will,  and  expresses 
purely  and  completely  the  reign  of  godliness  ( Gottesbewusstsein ) 
in  human  nature,  is  the  foundation  of  our  relation  to  Him ;  and 
,  on  the  recognition  of  this  everything  that  is  distinctively  Christian 
rests.  In  this  is  included  the  fact  that,  independently  of  his  con¬ 
nection  with  Christ,  neither  any  individual  man,  nor  any  particular 


506 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


part  of  the  collective  life  of  humanity,  in  any  era,  is,  in  and  of 
itself,  righteous  before  God,  or  an  object  of  His  approbation.” 

“  In  living  fellowship  with  Christ,  no  one  will  be,  or  will  be  con¬ 
sidered  by  God,  anything  for  himself;  but  every  one  will  appear 
only  as  inspired  by  Him,  and  as  a  portion,  in  the  process  of 
development,  of  His  work.”  He  is  like  the  High  Priest  in  rela¬ 
tion  to  the  people  ;  God  looks  on  them  as  in  Him.  “  His  pure 
will  to  fulfil  the  divine  will  is,  by  means  of  the  vital  fellowship 
between  Him  and  us,  operative  in  us,  and  we  thus  have  part  in 
His  perfection,  if  not  in  the  actual  realization,  nevertheless  in  the 
stimulus  and  spur  (Antriefr) .”  Christ  has  actually  fulfilled  the 
will  of  God,  therefore,  “not  in  our  stead,  but  for  our  benefit.”  As 
concerns  the  passive  obedience,  or  sufferings,  of  Christ,  “  in 
every  human  community,  so  far  as  it  can  be  considexed  a  distinct 
whole,  there  is  as  much  evil  as  there  is  sin ;  so  that,  to  be  sure, 
evil  is  the  punishment  of  sin;  not,  however,  in  the  sense  that  each 
individual  suffers  completely  and  exclusively  just  the  evil  which 
stands  in  connection  with  his  personal  sin.  Therefore,  in  every 
case  where  another  suffers  evils  which  are  not  connected  with  his 
own  sin,  it  can  be  said  that  he  suffers  punishment  for  others,  who, 
since  the  sin,  as  the  cause  and  fountain  of  evil,  has  exhausted 
itself,  are  no  longer  smitten  with  evils  in  consequence  of  it.  \Since 
Christ,  in  order  to  take  us  up  into  the  fellowship  of  His  life,  must 
enter  into  the  fellowship  of  our  life  which  is  sinful,  where  sin  is 
continually  begetting  suffering  and  evil,  He  suffered  for  the  entire 
human  race  ;  for  to  the  whole  race  He  chose  to  ally  Himself.  As 
-)  High  Priest,  moreover,  His  sympathy  with  human  guilt  and  ill- 
desert,  or  His  sympathetic  apprehension  of  it,  which  was  the 
motive  of  His  redemptive  work,  reached  its  highest  pitch  when  it 
inspired  Him  to  undergo  death  at  the  hands  of  sinners.  Here 
was  His  victory  over  sin ;  and  with  it,  over  evil  which  sin  brings 
in  its  train.  Hence,  by  the  sufferings  of  Christ  punishment  may 
be  said  to  be  abolished,  because  in  the  communion  of  His  blessed 
life,  evil,  which  becomes  a  vanishing  element,  is  no  longer  felt  as 
a  penalty.  It  is  in  His  sufferings  that  we  behold  His  holiness, 

\  and  His  blessedness  also,  which  are  seen  to  be  invincible  under  the 
\  severest  test.  By  entering  into  His  sufferings,  the  conviction  of 
His  holiness  and  blessedness  is  brought  home  to  us.  The  suffer-  . 
,  ing  of  Christ  is  vicarious,  in  that  His  sympathetic  apprehension 
\  {Mitgefiiht)  of  sin  is  complete,  even  as  regards  those  who  are  not 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


507 


themselves  distressed  by  the  consciousness  of  sin;  and  in  the 
sense  that,  being  Himself  sinless,  He  is  not  under  Obligation  to 
suffer.  His  sympathetic  compassion  for  men  as  sinners  is  strong 
enough  to  take  in  all ;  it  exhibits  itself  fully  in  His  freely  giving 
Himself  up  to  death  ;  and  it  serves  ever  to  complete  and  perfect 
our  imperfect  consciousness  of  sin.  Christ  sustains  a  relation  to 
us  which  renders  Him  the  representative  of  the  entire  human 
race,  inasmuch  as,  in  the  character  of  a  High  Priest,  He  brings 
our  prayers  to  God,  and  brings  to  us  the  divine  blessing.  He  is 
the  Priest  whom  all  preceding  priesthoods  imperfectly  foreshadow.  \ 
He  is  the  most  perfect  Mediator  between  God  and  every  separate 
portion  of  the  human  race,  no  one  of  whom,  in  and  for  himself, 
could  be  an  object  for  God,  or  come  into  any  connection  with 
Him.  In  His  consciousness  is  the  norm  and  the  fountain  of 
acceptable  piety.  Even  the  penitence  which  is  appropriate  for 
sin,  finds  its  pattern  and  potence  in  His  sympathetic  sense  of  its 
evil.”1 

It  is  impossible  not  to  be  struck  with  the  spiritual  insight  and 
scientific  method  which  mark  Schleiermacher’s  discussion  of  this 
subject.  Christ,  bringing  into  the  race  the  life  of  holy  and  blessed 
communion  with  God  ;  maintaining  in  Himself  this  life  of  filial  love 
and  of  deep,  inward  peace  consequent  upon  it,  even  in  the  midst 
of  death  inflicted  by  the  malignity  of  men,  into  whose  condition 
of  sin  and  misery  He  entered  with  an  exhaustive  sympathy ;  anni¬ 
hilating  thus,  by  His  holy  constancy,  sin  as  a  principle,  and  with 
it  the  suffering  of  which  sin  is  the  parent,  and  which  is  put  in 
the  way  of  gradual  extinguishment ;  propagating  this  inward  life, 
within  the  circle  of  His  historic  influence,  by  drawing  sinful  men 
up  into  the  fellowship  of  His  filial  relation  to  God,  and  thus  giving 
them,  too,  the  victory  of  the  spirit  over  the  flesh ;  lifting  them, 
also,  above  the  power  of  outward  calamity  to  break  the  soul’s 
calm,  and  transmuting  for  them  all  outward  suffering,  including 
physical  death,  into  a  means  of  purification  and  peace,  —  these 
ideas  surely  include  an  important  part  of  the  Gospel, 
j  But  the  subjective  character  of  Schleiermacher’s  theology  is 
manifest  in  this  discussion  of  the  Atonement.  Sin  is  not  con¬ 
ceived  of  strictly  as  something  abnormal,  but  as  a  lower  stage  in 
human  development.  The  end  of  the  work  of  Christ  is  not  so 
much  to  rescue,  as  to  elevate,  human  nature.  Hence  the  feeling 

1  Der  Christliche  Glaube,  II.  1,  §  51  sq. 


508 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


of  guilt  and  its  correlate,  the  holy  displeasure  of  God,  are  left  out. 
When  the  principle  of  sin  is  broken  in  its  control,  it  is  conceived 
that  guilt  and  the  sense  of  guilt  disappear  of  themselves.  1  Guilt 
is  really  made  to  be  a  spur  to  an  onward  development,  instead  of 
being  retrospective  and  retributive  in  its  import.  Therefore  a 
conscious  need  of  expiation  finds  no  place.  According  to  Schlei- 
ermacher,  the  work  of  Christ,  and  His  death  as  a  part  of  it, 
delivers  from  sin,  and  delivers  from  punishment ;  but  this  last 
effect  is  within  the  sphere  of  the  natural  order,  in  the  way  of 
cause  and  effect,  and  not  from  any  other  influence  upon  the  mind 
of  God. 

$  The  new  life  through  Christ  is  progressive.  As  beginning,  it  is 
Regeneration ;  as  in  progress,  it  is  Sanctification.  Viewed  from 
the  side  of  man,  Regeneration  is  termed  Conversion ;  from  the 
side  of  God,  Justification.  When  the  will  ceases  to  be  determined 
by  the  “  flesh,”  by  the  influences  of  the  world  of  sense,  and  when 
the  religious  consciousness,  the  incentives  emanating  from  this 
source,  become  dominant,  the  change  is  “  conversion.”  Justifica¬ 
tion  is  the  removal  by  God  of  our  consciousness  of  guilt  and  of 
ill-desert.  It  begins  with  forgiveness.!  This  is  simultaneous  with 
the  sinner’s  union  to  Christ,  when  he  begins  to  contend  against 
his  own  sin,  makes  it  no  longer  his  own.  Then  the  sense  of  guilt 
vanishes.  Then  he  becomes  willing  to  suffer  with  Christ.  Hence 
natural  evil  is  no  longer  felt  to  be  penal.  Against  future  evil  he 
is  secured  by  his  part  in  the  kingly  office  of  Christ.  As  Christ 
lives  in  us,  we  become  partakers  of  His  Sonship.  But  Justification 
is  not  a  distinct  act  of  God  in  time,  but  a  single,  temporal  effect 
of  one  comprehensive  act  of  God.  It  is  the  effect  in  time  of  one 
eternal  and  universal  “  purpose  ”  —  the  last  term  being  figuratively 
used. 

Respecting  the  miracles  of  Christ,  Schleiermacher  is  obliged  to 
deny  the  possibility  of  miracles  in  the  sense  of  special  interposi¬ 
tions,  effects  of  supernatural  power.  Whatever  phenomena  are 
called  miraculous,  in  case  their  occurrence  is  established,  are  effects 
of  the  Power  immanent  in  the  world  —  effects  provided  for  in 
nature.  Miracles  are  not  a  component  element  in  our  faith  in 
Christ.  But  the  rejection  of  them  would  be  such  an  impeachment 
of  the  competency  of  the  original  reporters 'as  to  cast  discredit  on 
their  testimony,  in  general,  respecting  Christ,  and  thus  destroy  the 
basis  of  faith.  This  is  the  case  as  concerns  His  resurrection. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


509 


His  Ascension  is  not  sufficiently  verified  by  the  evidence,  but 
nothing  can  be  admitted  inconsistent  with  our  faith  in  Him, — 
for  example,  that  He  lived  on  in  concealment.  His  Second 
Advent  signifies  that  the  perfecting  of  the  Church  is  possible  only 
by  a  sudden  advance  —  as  it  were,  a  bound  —  when  the  propaga¬ 
tion  of  the  race  ceases,  and  the  mingling  of  the  good  and  the  evil. 
It  can  only  be  looked  upon  as  proceeding  from  the  kingly  office 
of  Christ.  The  great  miracle  for  us  is  the  effect  of  Christianity  on 
mankind.  The  greatest  miracle  of  all  is  Christ  Himself.  Sjchleiep; 
macher  must  conceive  of  conversion  as  exclusively  due  to  God’s 
agency.  This  is  expressed  by  the  term  e  Election,’  with  the  ad¬ 
ditional  fact  that  the  occurrence  of  conversion  in  each  case  is  at 
a  particular  time.  But  all  are  ultimately  saved.  The  Church  is 
one,  as  a  nation  is  one,  through  the  one  spirit  that  pervades  it  and 
unites  all  its  members,  amid  individual  peculiarities.  Reception 
into  fellowship  with  Christ  and  reception  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  are 
one  and  the  same  thing.  Faith  in  Christ  precedes  a  doctrine 
concerning  the  Scriptures.  They  are  the  first  exposition  of  the 
Christian  faith,  and  the  norm  of  all  that  follow  it.  The  call  to  the 
ministry  is  the  inward  disposition  in'  some  to  exercise  predomi¬ 
nantly  the  forth-going,  rather  than  the  receptive,  species  of  activity, 
both  species  being  characteristic  of  the  members  of  the  Church. 
Prayer  is  not  to  be  conceived  of  as  producing  an  effect  on  God. 
True  prayer  springs  from  a  presage  in  the  Christian  mind  of  what  is 
to  be  done  by  Christ,  of  what  is  to  occur  in  His  kingdom.  The 
prayer,  as  well  as  its  answer,  are  products  of  Christ’s  agency  as 
king.  True  prayer  has  no  other  object  than  something  that  is 
included  in  the  divine  order  of  events.  Moreover,  the  state  of 
mind  out  of  which  prayer  arises  is  one  of  the  conditions,  in  the 
natural  order,  of  its  fulfilment.  The  Visible  and  the  Invisible 
Church  are  not  spatially  separated.  Every  visible  part  of  the 
Church  is  a  mixture  of  the  Church  and  the  world.  The  Invisible 
Church  is  the  sum  of  all  the  effects  of  the  Spirit.  The  Church 
will  be  perfect  when  all  reactionary  influences  of  the  world  upon 
it  and  within  it  cease.  This  gives  the  distinction  of  the  Militant 
and  the  Triumphant  Church.  Belief  in  immortality  may  be  a 
selfish  or  an  unselfish  belief.  The  real  foundation  of  it  is  the  fact 
of  the  union  of  God  and  man  in  Christ,  and  its  design  to 
redeem  and  perfect  the  individuals  of  the  race.  In  eschatology, 
no  systematic  construction  of  doctrine  is  possible.  The  con- 


5io 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


tinuance  of  personal  life  is  represented  under  the  image  of  the 
resurrection  of  the  body :  it  is  the  taking  away  of  death.  The 
perfection  of  the  Church,  from  one  point  of  view,  —  as  the 
Church  is  no  more  to  be  acted  upon  to  its  hurt  by  the  world,  — 
is  the  Last  Judgment.  From  another  point  of  view,  as  excluding 
all  imperfection,  it  is  eternal  blessedness.  Schleiermacher  argues 
against  the  doctrine  of  eternal  punishment,  on  the  ground  that  it 
would  interfere  with  the  happiness  of  heaven.  Whether  the  in¬ 
dividual  at  death  takes  on  a  new  organism,  or  whether  the  “  gen¬ 
eral  resurrection  ”  takes  place  at  the  Last  Judgment,  is  a  question 
on  which  Schleiermacher  gives  no  decision.  The  divine  govern¬ 
ment  is  the  causal  agency  of  God  as  directed  to  the  existence  and 
spread  of  the  Church.  The  Church,  or  the  kingdom  of  God,  in 
its  whole  extent  and  in  all  its  consequences,  is  the  end  of  the 
divine  government.  Love  is  the  tendency  of  one  to  unite  himself 
to  another  and  to  live  in  another.  In  the  Church  God  unites  Him¬ 
self  with  men.  Thus  Love  is  the  controlling  principle,  just  as  in  the 
harmonious  ordering  of  redemption  God’s  Wisdom  is  discovered. 
But  the  application  of  these  terms  to  the  undivided  causal  agency 
of  God  is  anthropopathic.  The  Church  doctrine  of  the  Trinity 
is  not  an  “immediate  expression  respecting  the  Christian  self- 
consciousness,  but  only  a  conjunction  of  several  such  expressions.” 
Consistently  with  his  whole  system,  Schleiermacher  declares  for 
the  Sabellian  conception. 

In  any  brief  sketch  of  Schleiermacher’s  system  justice  can  hardly 
be  done  to  the  Christian  elements  that  pervade  it.  Religion  is 
set  free  from  servitude  to  philosophy,  and  gains  an  independent 
footing  for  itself.  A  central  place  is  given  to  Christ.  His  influ¬ 
ence,  His  relation  to  His  disciples,  is  conceived  of  as  deep  and 
controlling.  Schleiermacher  is  not  ashamed  to  call  it  mystical,  in 
contrast  with  the  rationalistic  descriptions  of  it.  Yet  it  is  a  system 
such  that  one  is  at  a  loss  whether  to  call  it  Christianity  leavened 
with  Pantheism,  or  Pantheism  leavened  with  Christianity.  In  truth, 
as  it  has  been  said,  it  is  a  mixture  of  the  two  where  each  is  com¬ 
pletely  pulverized  and  both  so  thoroughly  mixed  that  it  is  not  easy 
to  discern  them  separately.  In  the  conception  of  God  at  the 
outset  His  transcendence  is  sacrificed  and  absorbed  in  His  imma¬ 
nence.  At  the  starting-point  religion  is  resolved  into  the  sense  of 
dependence.  Personality,  freedom,  fail  of  a  due  recognition. 
The  radical  assumption  of  an  immanent,  intramundane  causality 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


5 1 1 

moulds  the  conception  of  sin,  of  the  person  of  Christ,  of  prayer, 
of  justification  —  in  short,  of  every  point  of  Christian  doctrine. 
Although  personality  is  wanting  in  Schleiermacher’s  conception  of 
God,  yet  it  is  something  different  from  the  bare  substance  of 
Spinoza.  It  embraces  the  idea  of  a  living,  active  energy. 


CHAPTER  VII 


THE  LIBERAL  EVANGELICAL  OR  MEDIATING  SCHOOL  :  THE  INFLUENCE 

OF  SCHLEIERMACHER  j  DORNER  ;  JULIUS  MULLER  ;  NITZSCH  - 

THE  SYSTEM  OF  ROTHE - LIPSIUS - THE  CONFESSIONAL  LUTHERANS 

- THE  RITSCHLIANS 

Schleiermacher  broke  a  pathway  out  of  the  ethical  rationalism 
to  a  more  living  apprehension  of  religion  and  the  Gospel.  He 
was  the  founder  of  the  School  of  Liberal  Evangelical  Theology, 
which  not  only  drew  inspiration  from  his  teaching,  but  took  up  rich 
materials  from  it  to  be  incorporated  in  systems  differing  from  his 
own.  The  Mediating  School,  as  it  is  called,  counts  among  its 
members  the  great  historian  Neander,  exegetes  like  Liicke, 
Tholuck,  Bleek,  and  numerous  writers  in  dogmatic  theology,  of 
whom  Twesten,  Nitzsch,  Julius  Muller,  Rothe,  Dorner,  are  among 
the  most  eminent.  For  many  years  the  Studien  und  Kritiken ,  a 
quarterly  review,  was  the  organ  of  the  school.  It  is  a  school 
whose  representatives  naturally  have  differed  widely  among  them¬ 
selves  in  theological  opinion.  They  carry  us  back  to  the  point 
of  view  taken  by  Origen  in  his  time,  where  diversity  on  many 
important  questions  is  not  regarded  as  a  ground  for  sundering 
fellowship,  and  problems  not  a  few  are  admitted  to  be  waiting  for 
a  satisfactory  solution.  In  relation  to  Schleiermacher,  his  influ¬ 
ence  is  perceptible  in  all  their  theological  constructions.  At 
every  point,  he  is  both  followed,  and,  if  not  combated,  is  criticised. 
The  Mediating  School  accepted  the  conclusions  of  theological 
investigation  ;  it  partook  earnestly  of  the  scientific  spirit,  but  planted 
itself  firmly  on  the  ground  of  supernatural  revelation  and  the 
evangelical  faith.  It  was  “  mediating,”  moreover,  as  supporting 
the  union  of  the  Lutheran  and  Reformed  churches,  on  the  basis 
of  the  consensus  of  their  confessions  in  things  deemed  to  be  essen¬ 
tial.  Although  the  epithet  “mediating”  was  sometimes  applied 

512 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


513 


as  a  term  of  reproach,  the  theologians  of  this  class  are  not 
chargeable  with  a  weak  eclecticism.  They  were  not  at  all  inter¬ 
ested  in  making  a  patchwork  out  of  conflicting  systems.  The 
principal  theologians  in  their  ranks  have  been  independent  in 
their  thinking,  as  they  have  been  vigorous  and  learned  in  their 
discussions. 

While  agreeing  with  Schleiermacher  that  religion  is  not  a  prod¬ 
uct  of  philosophy,  but  has  roots  of  its  own  in  the  spirit  of  man, 
they,  generally  speaking,  consider  his  definition  of  piety  to  be 
quite  incomplete.  It  designates  piety  in  its  nascent  life  in  the 
soul ;  but  piety  —  faith  —  involves  thought  and  will  as  well  as 
feeling.  In  the  origin  of  religion,  psychologically  viewed,  con¬ 
science  has  a  part.  Freedom,  as  well  as  dependence,  is  an  ele¬ 
ment.  Man  not  only  consciously  depends  on  God,  he  gives  himself 
to  God.  God  is  personal ;  personality  does  not  exclude  infini¬ 
tude  in  the  proper  idea  of  the  infinite  ;  His  power  is  not  confined 
to'  the  extent  of  its  exertion  in  the  finite  world  ;  He  is  transcendent 
as  well  as  immanent.  The  mediating  theologians  accept  the  char¬ 
acteristic  doctrines  of  the  Reformers.  They  present  modified 
views  of  Inspiration,  not  holding  to  the  inerrancy  of  Scripture,  yet 
maintaining  that  the  Scriptures  as  a  whole  are  the  norm  of  doc¬ 
trine.  Justification  by  faith  alone,  the  Christian  life  as  the  off¬ 
spring  of  faith,  are,  likewise,  tenets  earnestly  maintained.  They 
are  agreed  in  believing  in  the  divinity  of  Christ,  although  not  at 
one  as  to  the  mode  of  the  Incarnation,  and  the  connection  of  the 
divine  and  the  human  in  the  historical  Christ.  They  defend  the 
historical  verity  of  the  miracles  of  Scripture,  including  the  miracle 
of  the  Resurrection  of  Jesus,  although  not  holding  that  all  the 
recorded  miracles,  more  than  the  rest  of  the  incidents  in  the  Biblical 
record,  have  an  equal  historical  verification,  or  are  equally  entitled 
to  credence.  As  on  the  subject  of  Inspiration,  so  on  the  subject 
of  Eschatology,  —  for  example,  in  respect  to  the  eternity  of  future 
punishment,  —  there  is  no  absolute  concurrence  of  opinion.  As  to 
this  particular  question,  many  lean  towards  a  negative  judgment, 
and  many  consider  it  doubtful.  Commonly  it  is  held  by  them 
that  the  opportunity  of  repentance  and  reclamation  continues  after 
death,  and  can  only  terminate  when  a  state  of  incurable  obduracy 
supervenes,  or  the  power  of  spiritual  sensibility  and  of  response 
to  the  incentives  to  repentance,  is  exhausted.  As  to  the  proba¬ 
bility  of  the  occurrence  of  such  a  fatal  event  in  the  case  of 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


514 

any,  the  mediating  theologians,  it  has  already  been  remarked, 
variously  judge,  in  view  of  considerations  drawn  from  reason 
and  the  Bible. 

Dorner  is  the  author  of  four  extended  works,  all  of  them  monu¬ 
ments  of  his  extraordinary  talents  and  learning,  and  of  his  genuine 
piety  :  The  History  of  the  Doctrine  of  the  Person  of  Christ ,  The 
History  of  Protestant  Theology ,  The  System  of  Christian  Doctrine , 
and  Christian  Ethics .  He  is  a  philosophical,  as  well  as  Scriptural, 
theologian,  and  suggestions,  especially  as  to  the  method  of  historical 
development,  remind  one  of  Hegel.  The  centre  of  his  system  is 
the  union  of  God  and  man  in  Christ,  the  consummation  to  which 
not  only  the  Old  Testament  Revelation,  but  all  religions,  point  to 
or  look  towards.  Dorner  rejects  the  theory  of  Kenosis.  Incarna¬ 
tion,  real  from  the  beginning,  is  gradual  in  its  effect,  keeping  pace 
with  the  ethical  development  of  Jesus.  Thus,  his  limitations  as  to 
knowledge,  etc.,  are  to  be  explained.  In  the  experience  of  justifi¬ 
cation  by  faith,  wherein  faith  advances  from  lower  stages  to  its 
goal,  are  contained  the  truths  of  which  it  is  the  province  of 
Christian  thought  to  gain  a  scientific  apprehension.  Here  is 
opened  the  field  of  Biblical  study  and  of  legitimate  speculation. 
Men  in  their  natural  state  are  in  an  abnormal  condition  which  is 
the  inherited  consequence  of  the  fall,  and  is  displeasing  to  God, 
yet  not  imputed  to  the  individual,  until  his  personality  is  developed, 
with  the  power  to  struggle  against  it.1  There  may  be  said  to  be 
a  collective  sin  and  a  collective  guilt.  This  is  punishable,  and  is 
punished.2  But  as  the  evil  of  the  personal  subject  and  of  the  race 
are  mingled,  although  the  consequence  without  divine  help  is  a 
sinking  to  an  even  lower  depth  morally,  yet  it  does  not  bring 
final  condemnation  until  and  unless  sin  advances  to  obduracy 
under  the  test  presented  by  a  knowledge  of  the  Gospel.  With¬ 
out  this  knowledge,  there  is  deserved  condemnation,  and  the 
provision  for  salvation  is  wholly  of  grace.  But  nothing  short 
of  a  wilful  failure  to  meet  the  test  involved  in  the  coming  of 
the  light  of  the  Gospel  can  lead  to  hopeless  perdition.  They 
to  whom  this  opportunity  has  not  been  given  fairly  and  fully, 
will  enjoy  it  beyond  this  life.  But  that  it  will  prove  effectual 
for  good  in  all  cases  cannot  be  confidently  asserted.  The 
Anselmic  idea  of  Atonement  is  discarded,  yet  the  fact  of  an 
objective  change  in  the  relation  of  God  to  mankind  through 

1  Glanbenslehre ,  Vol.  II.  p.  165  sq.  2  Ibid.  p.  173. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


515 

the  work  of  Christ  is  maintained  in  a  discussion  pursued  with  a 
keen  discrimination.1 

Julius  Muller  taught  theology  with  a  masterly  vigor  and  clear¬ 
ness  of  discernment,  mingled  with  profound  moral  earnestness. 
The  weakness  of  his  health  in  his  closing  years  preventing  such 
a  revisal  of  his  lectures  on  dogmatic  theology  as  he  deemed 
requisite,  he  directed  that  they  should  not  be  published.  But  in 
his  treatise  on  “  The  Christian  Doctrine  of  Sin  ”  is  involved  an 
exposition  of  the  foundations  of  theism  and  of  certain  other 
leading  topics.  The  belief  in  God  takes  its  rise  in  the  conscious¬ 
ness  of  our  personality  as  finite,  yet  as  differing  toto  genere  from 
the  world  without,  and  in  the  conscious  subjection  to  the  law  of 
conscience,  which  is  independent,  as  to  its  source,  of  our  wills. 
This  belief  is  elicited  and  corroborated  by  the  proof  (so  called)  of 
God’s  existence  and  attributes. 

All  theories  to  account  for  sin  otherwise  than  through  the  self- 
determination  of  the  creature,  or  to  define  it  as  anything  but  volun¬ 
tary  selfishness,  are  confuted.  The  stages  in  the  development  of 
sin,  the  nature  and  degree  of  freedom  consistent  with  its  existence, 
are  pointed  out.  Muller  is  led  by  his  reasonings  to  assume  as  the 
ground  and  cause  of  sin  a  transcendent,  non-temporal,  voluntary 
act  of  each  individual  of  the  race, — a  revival  of  the  hypothesis 
(in  its  general  character)  of  Origen.  This  is  an  inference  from 
the  proposition  that  our  state  is,  prior  to  conscious  moral  choices, 
culpable,  as  presupposing  a  will  already  determined  in  the  wrong 
direction,  and  from  the  conditions  of  personal  guilt  and  responsi¬ 
bility. 

Carl  Immanuel  Nitzsch  was  revered  as  the  Nestor  among  the 
Schleiermacherian  theologians.  He  was  born  in  1789.  His  Ayr- 
tem  of  Christian  Doctrine  is  sometimes  spoken  of  as  obscure,  but 
its  obscurity  is  owing  to  no  want  of  precision  either  of  thought  or 
expression,  but  to  the  amount  of  thought  which  is  packed  into  a 
small  space.  It  becomes  lucid,  therefore,  to  a  patient  and  atten¬ 
tive  student.  Nitzsch  sets  forth  the  doctrine  of  an  immanent 
Trinity.  He  considers  it  as  the  one  complete  shield  against 
“  Atheism,  Polytheism,  Pantheism,  or  Dualism.”  The  Jewish  and 
the  Mohammedan  conception  of  God,  by  their  barrenness  and 
emptiness  ( Trockenheit  imd  Leere)  have  misled  into  the  most 

1  See  especially  Glaubenslehre,  Vol.  IE  pp.  656-659,  with  the  preceding 
review  of  theories. 


516 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


crass  Pantheism.  Through  the  Trinity,  the  realization  of  the  attri¬ 
butes  of  God  is  seen  to  be  possible  within  His  own  being,  without  the 
?iecessity  of  creation,  and  the  Incarnation  to  be  possible  with  no  con¬ 
founding  of  God  and  man.1  The  world,  in  its  need  of  redemption, 
requires  such  a  redemption  as  shall  not  only  reawaken  its  religious 
sensibility  and  capacity,  but  shall  also  impart  the  power  of  self¬ 
punishment,  and  of  entering,  through  the  death  of  contrition,  into 
the  life  of  holiness.  Here  is  the  need  of  a  Mediator.  “The  world’s 
unrighteousness  spends  itself  upon  the  Holy  and  Righteous  One, 
completes  and  exhausts  itself.  He  endures  it  in  the  glory  of  His 
innocence,  in  order,  by  His  spirit,  to  punish  it  upon  us.  Only 
as  the  power  and  possibility  of  an  actual  release  of  men  from  sin 
{ [Entsiindigung ) ,  of  our  dying  with  Him,  and  rising  in  a  new  life, 
does  He  suffer  death  in  our  place,  and  make  Himself  an  offering 
to  God.  Only  thus  is  He  a  ransom  for  many.  It  is  in  the  depth 
of  His  sympathy,  and  in  the  endeavor  for  the  world’s  salvation, 
that  He  bears  the  penalty  of  its  sin.”  According  to  Nitzsch,  the 
Scripture  teaches  an  eternal  damnation  of  individuals  hypotheti¬ 
cally.  Grace  not  being  coercive,  final  resistance  is  possible,  and, 
supposing  it  to  be  actual,  there  is  an  eternal  condemnation.  Whether 
this  “  hypothesis  ”  will  become  “  thesis,”  or  actuality,  is  another 
question.  He  argues  against  the  doctrine  of  the  annihilation  of 
the  wicked.  If  universal  restoration  be  the  fact,  or  annihilation,  or 
the  reduction  of  the  soul  to  a*  ruin,  bereft  of  all  good  as  well  as 
evil  activity,  it  is  conceivable  that  the  same  Apostle  who  had 
preached  eternal  damnation,  nevertheless,  in  his  final  eschatology 
(in  i  Cor.  xv.),  passes  beyond  and  above  this  expectation. 
Neander  likewise  discerns  in  Paul  a  progress  in  his  knowledge  of 
eschatology,  and  a  later  teaching  (i  Cor.  xv.  27,  28;  Phil.  ii.  10. 
1 1 ;  Col.  i.  20)  of  universal  restitution.  This,  he  says,  would  not 
contradict  the  doctrine  of  eternal  punishment,  as  it  appears  in  the 
Gospels  7  “  for,  although  those  who  are  hardened  in  wickedness, 
left  to  the  consequences  of  their  conduct,  their  merited  fate,  have 
to  expect  endless  unhappiness,  yet  a  hidden  purpose  of  the  divine 
compassion  is  not  necessarily  excluded.”2 

None  among  the  modern  German  theologians  excels  in  original¬ 
ity  —  and,  it  may  be  added,  in  attractions  of  character  —  Richard 
Rothe.  Large  as  is  the  debt  which  he  owes  to  Schleiermacher,  he 
is  not  to  be  classified,  without  much  qualification,  with  the  Schleier- 

1  System  d.  Christl.  Lehre ,  p.  188.  2  PL  and  Tr.  of  the  Christ.  Ch.  p.  487. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


517 


macherian  School.  He  writes  with  a  faith  in  theism  which,  as  he 
tells  us,  has  never  been  ruffled  by  a  doubt,  and  with  the  most 
decided  supernaturalism  relative  to  Christianity,  a  singular  bold¬ 
ness  in  speculation,  not  coupled  in  the  least  with  arrogance. 
Rothe  holds  that  Ethics  and  Religion  are  not  to  be  dissevered. 
In  his  great  work,  the  Theological  Ethics ,  the  two  are  fused  in  one 
system.  The  starting-point  is  the  Christian’s  consciousness  of  God 
and  the  idea  contained  in  it.  From  this  religious  consciousness 
Rothe  holds  that  a  theology  may  be  deduced  by  a  logical  process 
in  which  every  step  implies  every  other.  The  process  is  carried 
forward  independently  of  the  facts  of  natural  and  revealed  religion. 
Its  results  must  correspond  to  these  realities,  and  its  freedom  from 
error  must  be  tested  by  its  conformity  or  dis-conformity  to  them. 
Thus  he  holds  to  the  possibility  of  a  speculative  theology,  in  its  foun¬ 
dation,  independent  of  metaphysical  philosophy.1  In  his  posthu¬ 
mous  Dogmatics ,  the  system  of  orthodox  doctrine  is  explained,  and 
undergoes  at  every  point  a  criticism  by  which  it  is  greatly  modi¬ 
fied.  In  his  little  work  serving  as  an  introduction  to  Dogmatics 
he  states  his  views  of  the  Bible  and  its  authority.  Revelation 
has  two  sides.  It  is  Manifestation ,  the  objective  acts  of  God  in 
Providence  as  it  is  concerned,  in  the  old  Dispensation,  with  the 
Hebrew  people,  and  in  the  new  with  Christ,  and  Inspiration ,  an 
illumination  of  the  mind  for  the  interpretation  of  them.  Revela¬ 
tion  is  in  itself  miraculous.  Special  miracles  are  not  in  the  least 
in  conflict  with  a  right  conception  of  natural  law,  which  is  not 
a  chain  upon  the  Creator.  The  recorded  miracles  are  historical 
facts,  to  be  tested,  however,  like  the  natural  events  in  the  narra¬ 
tive,  by  attention  to  the  evidence  in  the  special  cases.  Yet  belief 
is  not  in  these  days  to  be  exacted  of  those  who  —  for  instance, 
from  misconceptions  as  to  science  —  find  them  incredible.  The 
Scriptures  are  not  free  from  errors.  Yet  they  contain  in  them¬ 
selves —  that  is,  the  body  of  these  writings  contain  —  when  studied, 
a  corrective.  Rothe  undertakes  to  explain  the  inner  self-realization 
of  God.  An  immanent  Trinity  is  excluded.  Matter  is  eternal  and 
necessary,  it  being  the  non-ego  which  God  opposes  to  Himself  in 
the  act  of  self-consciousness.  But  it  does  not  clash  with  His  per¬ 
fection  as  the  Absolute,  since  by  a  process  of  creation  He  can 
spiritualize  matter,  infuse  it  with  spirit,  and  thus  more  fully  realize 

1  For  a  criticism  of  this  position,  see  Flint’s  Art.  “Theology”  ( Encycl . 
Brit.  Vol.  23,  p.  270). 


5i8 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


His  idea.  When  man  is  created  there  is  in  him  a  duality.  He  is 
to  take  up  and  carry  forward  the  spiritualizing  process.  He*  is  to 
spiritualize  his  own  physical  being.  But  selfishness  is  the  natural 
and  necessary  result  of  his  relation  to  matter  and  the  promptings 
of  his  material  nature.  The  historic  fall  of  man  and  the  transmis¬ 
sion  of  sin  by  heredity  or  imputation  are  not  admitted.  Although 
Rothe  does  not  exclude  the  freedom  of  the  will,  which  is  involved 
in  the  ethical  obligation  to  develop  a  spiritual  body,  yet  his  idea 
is  a  species  of  gnosticism.  The  design  of  God  is  counteracted 
by  sin,  flesh  dominates  spirit,  but  redemption  comes  to  our  aid 
and  deliverance.  Rothe  contends  that  the  preexistence  of  Christ 
is  not  asserted  by  Himself.  This  doctrine,  so  far  as  it  appears  in 
Paul  and  in  John,  is  a  subjective  inference  on  their  part  from  His 
divinity.  His  miraculous  birth  is  a  requisite  condition  of  His 
freedom  from  the  dominance  of  the  flesh,  to  which  the  rest  of 
mankind  are  subject.  He  is,  however,  subject  to  temptation  and 
reaches  mature  perfectness  through  conflict.  The  Incarnation 
brings  to  pass  an  ethical  union  of  God  and  man  in  the  person  of 
Christ,  which  keeps  pace  in  its  progress  towards  absolute  unity 
with  his  ethical  advance.  That  advance  consists  or  carries  in 
it  the  conquest  over  sense,  the  spiritualizing  of  the  material  nature, 
the  progressive  origination  of  a  spiritual  body.  No  one,  says 
Rothe,  would  style  this  a  merely  ethical  unity,  if  he  understood 
what  ethical  unity  means  and  involves.  Christ  is  thus  truly 
divine.  The  Holy  Spirit  and  the  glorified  Christ  are  one  and  the 
same.  The  Spirit  is  not  an  hypostasis  distinct  from  the  ascended 
Redeemer  whose  powers  correspond  to  the  offices  ascribed  to 
“  the  Spirit”  in  the  New  Testament.  Rothe  was  willing  to  style 
himself  a  theosophist  and  to  own  thankfully  his  obligations  to 
Oetinger.  Consistently  with  his  general  conception  of  man’s 
composite  being  and  moral  task,  he  makes  our  completed  salva¬ 
tion  lie  in  the  absolute  conquest  by  the  spirit,  the  spiritualizing  of 
our  whole  being.  The  ultimate  consequence  of  a  failure,  in 
whomsoever  it  may  finally  occur,  to  achieve  in  this  way,  through 
the  helps  of  grace,  immortality,  is  the  necessary  extinction  of  life 
and  being. 

Rothe’s  exposition  of  the  Atonement  is  specially  interesting. 
Redemption  must  take  away  the  consequence  of  sin  to  the  trans¬ 
gressor,  in  his  relation  to  God, —  his  being  under  the  wrath  of 
God,  or  guilt  and  punishment.  This  is  possible  only  through  for- 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


519 


giveness.  And  redemption  must  take  away  sin  itself,  and  restore 
in  man  the  dominion  of  the  opposite  principle.  Both  elements 
mutually  condition  each  other.  God,  on  account  of  His  holiness 
and  righteousness,  cannot  forgive  the  sinner  unless  he  is  actually 
freed  from  sin ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  this  last  is  impossible  if 
the  sinner  is  not  first  forgiven,  for  so  long  as  God  repels  him,  he 
cannot  turn  to  God,  or  get  rid  of  sin.  Here  is  an  antinomy. 
Even  the  holiness  and  righteousness  of  God  require  this  to  be 
dissolved  and  removed ;  for  these  attributes  are  not  content  with 
the  mere  punishment  of  sin ;  they  crave  the  actual  destruction 
of  sin  itself,  the  termination  of  its  control  in  the  hearts  of  men. 
So  that,  in  case  forgiveness  is  indispensable  to  this  result,  holiness 
and  righteousness  call  for  forgiveness  ;  only  they  demand  inexorably 
that  pardon  shall  be  granted  in  such  a  way  as  to  carry  in  it,  like¬ 
wise,  the  holy  reaction  of  God  against  sin  ;  i.e.,  these  very  feelings 
of  holiness  and  righteousness.  The  solution  of  the  antinomy  is 
the  Atonement,  or  the  making  of  sin  forgivable ,  —  a  modification 
in  the  relation  between  the  sinner  and  God,  in  virtue  of  which 
God,  notwithstanding  His  holiness  and  righteousness,  can  forgive 
the  sin  which  still  cleaves  to  him,  and,  notwithstanding  its  pres¬ 
ence,  can  enter  into  communion  with  him.  There  is  only  one 
way  of  effecting  this  result.  If  sin  is  to  be  forgiven  before  it  is 
actually  removed  or  destroyed,  God  must  have  a  guaranty,  which 
is  perfect,  as  inhering  in  the  transaction  itself,  that  sin  will  in  the 
future  be  in  fact  wholly  put  away  from  the  sinner,  provided  for¬ 
giveness  is  provisionally  imparted  to  him,  so  that  this  preliminary 
reception  of  pardon,  this  pardon  by  anticipation,  shall  be  itself 
the  actual  beginning  of  a  continuous  process  of  purification  from 
sin,  which  will  at  length  be  absolutely  complete.  If  forgiveness 
.  can  be  thus  the  first  step,  the  indispensable  and  sure  antecedent, 
of  the  actual  deliverance  from  sin  itself,  then,  and  then  only,  can 
the  relation  of  God  to  the  sinner  be  one  in  which  God  does  not 
manifest  wrath.  Nay  it  will  become  a  relation  in  which  even  His 
holiness  and  righteousness  require  Him  to  receive  the  sinner,  as 
reconciled,  into  communion  and  favor.  Sin  is  so  connected  with 
sin,  and  man  so  connected  with  man,  that  this  new  possibility 
must  come  in  with  reference  to  the  race  of  mankind  as  a  whole. 
This  possibility  is  created,  with  regard  to  the  race  and  to  indi¬ 
viduals,  by  the  perfecting  of  the  second  Adam,  as  Redeemer.  In 
Him  dwells  the  power  sufficient  for  the  actual  abolition  of  sin  in 


5  20 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


mankind,  as  a  whole  and  as  individuals  ;  and  He  has  actually  set 
on  foot  the  historical  process  which  will  have  this  issue,  it  being 
presupposed  that  the  anticipatory  forgiveness  of  sin  on  the  side 
of  God  takes  place.  In  the  case  of  every  individual  who  by  faith 
enters  into  fellowship  with  Christ,  there  is  given  to  God  a  guaranty 
for  his  future  complete  emancipation  from  sin,  and  for  the  fact 
that  his  pardon  is  only  the  initial  step  of  the  efficient  process 
which  is  to  remove  sin  in  him,  and  to  separate  him  wholly  from 
it.  By  the  Saviour,  then,  a  foundation  is  laid  for  the  reception 
into  the  relation  of  fellowship  with  God  of  the  old  sinful  humanity 
estranged  from  Him,  and  for  an  ethico-religious  development 
which  will  more  and  more  lead  that  humanity  into  the  way  of 
righteousness. 

How  has  the  Redeemer  atoned  for  mankind  ?  Rothe  answers, 
By  qualifying  Himself  to  be  a  Redeemer.  What  was  needed  was 
a  human  being  who  should  be  absolutely  qualified  completely  to 
effect  the  abolition  of  sin,  or  the  recovery  of  men  from  its  influ¬ 
ence  and  control.  Christ  has  developed  Himself  in  an  absolutely 
normal  way  to  the  point  of  perfection  as  a  moral  and  spiritual 
being ;  and  in  doing  so  He  has  brought  Himself  into  an  absolute 
union,  on  the  one  hand  with  God,  and,  on  the  other,  with  the  race 
of  mankind.  This  is  the  completed  sanctification  of  the  Redeemer, 
by  which  He  is  specially  fitted  to  be,  in  a  perfectly  adequate  way, 
the  cause  and  principle  of  our  sanctification.  The  moral  task  which 
Jesus  set  before  Him  was  that  of  a  complete  self-surrender  to  God, 
on  the  one  hand,  and  to  man,  on  the  other.  He  gave  all  that 
belonged  to  Him,  including  His  own  sensuous  being,  His  life,  as 
an  offering  to  God,  an  offering  of  Himself,  and  to  men  as  a  self- 
sacrifice,  for  their  best  good,  and  out  of  love  to  them.  This  was 
a  work  done  in  and  upon  Himself,  in  the  midst  of  trial,  in  success¬ 
ful  combat  with  the  Tempter  of  souls ;  but  done  for  the  sake  of 
men.  This  work  culminated  in  the  voluntary  endurance  of  death, 
which  consummated  the  surrender  of  everything  His  own.  This 
submission  to  death  perfected  at  once  His  union  to  God,  and  His 
union  to  men.  Love  could  go  no  farther.  This  self-surrender, 
carried  to  an  exhaustive  accomplishment,  involved  the  most  stren¬ 
uous  moral  exertion  on  His  part.  Being  a  work  undertaken 
entirely  for  our  sake,  it  was  vicarious  :  the  holy  One  performed  a 
work  in  the  name  of  the  sinner,  which  the  sinner  was  incapable  of 
performing  for  himself.  Potentially  in  Him  the  old  sinful  race 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


521 


were  regenerated ;  and  He  was,  therefore,  the  representative  of 
mankind,  and  of  every  individual.  His  suffering  has  its  ground, 
not  in  Himself,  the  sinless  One,  but  only  in  the  sinfulness  of 
the  world,  in  which  He  had  to  fulfil  the  moral  task  of  His  life, 
and  for  the  sake  of  which  He  fulfilled  it.  He  shares  the  world’s 
suffering,  and  thereby  takes  it  away ;  since  in  overcoming  sin,  He 
overcomes  evil,  or  suffering,  the  consequence  of  sin,  and  since, 
through  His  fellow-feeling  with  the  sinful  world,  He  felt  sympa¬ 
thetically  the  sufferings  that  befell  men,  and  which  are  properly 
not  His  —  not  His  in  the  character  which  pertains  to  them  in  the 
mind  of  the  ill-deserving  who  endure  them  —  i.e.,  as  the  penalty 
of  sin.  Thus  He  bore  the  penalties  of  our  sins ;  not,  however,  as 
His  own  punishment,  but  as  ours.  He  put  Himself  in  feeling  in 
our  place,  though  without  any  confusion  of  consciousness,  or  self¬ 
accusation.  Unlike  good  men,  martyrs,  He  endured  suffering  in 
absolute  innocence,  and  His  suffering  is  the  absolute  ground  and 
cause  of  our  exemption  from  it,  or  of  its  ultimate  removal.  So 
that  the  suffering  of  the  Redeemer  is,  in  an  altogether  peculiar 
way,  vicarious.  By  merit  is  meant  a  product  of  moral  exertion, 
which  is  of  a  nature  to  be  an  instrument  adapted  and  available  to 
all  in  the  work  that  devolves  on  them  in  life  as  moral  beings. 
The  Redeemer  by  making  Himself  what  He  was,  the  one  suffi¬ 
cient  instrument  of  the  moral  renovation  of  men,  and  of  their 
recovery  from  sin,  created  this  merit  —  this  sacrament  as  it  may 
be  called,  universal  in  its  efficacy  and  value.  When  through  Him 
we  receive  the  forgiveness  of  our  sins,  it  is  by  means  of  His  merit 
being  reckoned  to  us,  or  imputed  :  that  is  to  say,  our  sin  is  for¬ 
given,  not  because  there  is  in  ourselves  the  real  possibility  and 
absolute  warranty  of  a  future  complete  deliverance  from  sin,  but 
because  these  inhere  in  the  Redeemer ;  and  this  deliverance  is 
conditioned  on  our  relation  to  Him.  It  lies  in  that  which  He  has 
produced  as  the  means  of  our  attaining  the  end  of  our  being.  It 
is  a  part  of  Rothe’s  conception,  that  the  glorification  of  Christ, 
and  the  power  which  He  exerts  upon  men,  as  the  dispenser  of 
influences  from  above,  is  the  legitimate  fruit  of  that  spiritual  per¬ 
fection  to  which  He  attained  in  conflict  with  temptation  and 
through  His  self-surrender  in  death.  His  personal  power  continues 
to  be  exerted  in  a  vastly  augmented  degree,  in  this  higher  develop¬ 
ment  and  sphere  of  His  being. 

No  theologian  has  laid  more  stress  than  Rothe  upon  the  retro- 


522 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


active  bearing  of  the  conflict  of  Jesus  with  evil  —  its  effect  upon 
Himself.  In  Rothe  this  view  stands  connected  with  a  particular 
theory  of  the  relation  of  matter  to  spirit,  and  of  the  spiritualization 
of  matter.  But,  independently  of  this  speculation,  he  insists  upon  a 
truth  which  the  interpreters  of  the  New  Testament,  at  the  present 
day,  more  distinctly  recognize  than  it  was  formerly  the  habit  to 
do.  Sinless  as  Christ  was  from  the  beginning,  the  events  of  His 
career,  the  victory  over  temptation,  the  experience  of  sorrow  and  of 
death,  did  not  leave  His  character  unaffected.  It  is  characteristic 
of  that  great  religious  genius,  Jonathan  Edwards,  that  he  should 
have  spoken  of  the  increase  of  the  Saviour’s  holiness  in  passing 
through  the  scenes  that  preceded  and  attended  the  crucifixion. 
The  meaning  of  His  life,  as  regards  Himself,  and  hence  in  relation 
to  others,  is  missed,  unless  the  reality  of  His  temptation,  and  of 
all  the  struggles  which  the  Evangelists  record,  especially  that  in 
the  Garden,  is  fully  recognized,  and  unless  His  character  in  the 
maturity  of  its  perfection  is  looked  upon  as  the  product  of  His 
own  faithful  performance,  amid  the  circumstances  in  which  He 
was  placed,  of  the  work  given  Him  to  do.  It  was  of  an  achieve¬ 
ment,  as  well  as  of  an  endurance,  that  He  said  :  “  It  is  finished  !  ” 

It  will  be  observed  that  Rothe,  in  common  with  Luther,  Camp¬ 
bell,  Edwards,  Schleiermacher,  ascribes  to  Jesus  a  fellow-feeling 
with  sinful  men,  which  carried  Him  out  of  Himself  and  caused 
Him,  though  without  the  least  self-reproach,  to  take  up  into  His 
consciousness  the  penal  quality  which  inheres  in  the  ordinance  of 
death,  and  thus  to  have  an  intimate  knowledge  of  what  it  is  to  be 
punished  by  God,  and  to  be  under  His  frown.  The  outward 
inflictions  of  punishment  were  there,  and  the  inward  experience, 
also,  as  far  as  an  utterly  self-devoted  sympathy  could  engender  it. 

But  Rothe,  with  Schleiermacher,  conceives  of  guilt  as  the  mere 
shadow  of  sin,  vanishing  as  sin  vanishes,  and  makes  the  energy  of 
the  divine  love  and  righteousness  concentrate  upon  the  breaking 
of  the  control  of  sin  as  a  principle,  that  it  may  be  put  on  the  way 
to  an  ultimate  extinction.  The  retributive  element,  the  divine 
resentment,  “  the  wrath  of  God,”  demands  nothing  but  a  guaranty 
for  the  abandonment  of  sin  ;  although  it  should  be  said,  by  way  of 
qualification,  that  God  requires  the  means  for  working  out  this 
result  to  be  originated  and  gathered  by  the  struggle  and  sacrifice 
of  the  second  Adam,  on  the  plane  of  our  human  life,  subject  to  all 
its  exposures  and  penal  inflictions. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


523 


Lipsius  is  the  author  of  a  system  in  the  creation  of  which  the 
philosophy  of  Kant  and  the  theology  of  Schleiermacher  are 
equally  influential.  Like  so  many  of  his  contemporaries  of  differ¬ 
ent  schools,  he  attributes  our  knowledge  of  God  to  His  self-reve¬ 
lation  ;  yet  he  declines  to  draw  a  distinct  line  between  the  natural 
and  the  supernatural.  He  does  not  differ  from  Ritschl  in  ascrib¬ 
ing  the  origin  of  religion  in  man  to  a  striving  against  the  bondage 
which  the  limitations  of  the  outer  world  would  impose  upon  the 
freedom  and  progress  of  the  soul.  With  Schleiermacher  he  holds 
that  creation  is  not  one  act  of  God,  but  the  entire  development  of 
the  world  from  the  point  of  view  of  divine  agency.  It  is  thus 
without  beginning  or  end.  Sin  is  pronounced  a  necessary  stage 
in  human  development,  the  desires  being  at  the  outset  predomi¬ 
nant.  Natural  evils  are  considered  as  penal,  not  because  they  are 
so,  but  because  an  evil  conscience  so  regards  them.  Jesus  is  the 
one  sinless  human  being.  He  is  the  ideal  man,  in  whom  God 
dwells.  He  is  the  “  God-filled  ”  man,  the  object  of  God’s  love, 
the  founder  of  the  kingdom  of  souls  in  fellowship  with  God. 
The  Church  is  conscious  of  having  its  foundation  in  Christ,  the 
typical  and  the  creative  source  of  the  realization  of  the  Christian 
idea. 

No  sketch,  however  brief,  of  the  modern  theological  parties  in 
Germany  can  omit  to  refer  to  the  Lutheran  Conservatives  —  “  Con- 
fessionalists  ”  they  are  called  in  common  parlance  —  who  have 
taken  their  stand  upon  the  historic  creeds  of  their  Church.  In 
the  religious  reaction  which  followed  the  deliverance  of  Germany 
from  bondage  to  Napoleon,  there  arose  among  many  a  reawakened 
zeal  for  the  Evangelical  doctrine  as  it  had  been  formulated  by 
Luther  and  in  the  Lutheran  creeds.  The  influence  of  the  con¬ 
temporary  leaders  of  religious  thought,  as  the  event  proved,  could 
not  be  wholly  escaped ;  yet  their  more  or  less  startling  innovations 
were  rejected.  Among  the  adherents  of  the  Confessions,  the 
“  Erlangen  School  ”  of  theologians  has  the  most  prominent 
place.  Luthardt,  whose  academic  career  has  been  mostly  at 
Leipsic,  and  Philippi,  are  writers  who  have  departed  least  from 
the  traditional  tenets,  and  have  been  unflagging  in  their  zeal  to 
maintain  them.  Von  Hofmann  in  his  Schriftbeweiss 1  undertook 
to  deduce  the  theological  system  logically  from  the  Christian 
experience.  He  begins,  not  with  the  idea  of  God,  but  with  the 

1  2  ed.  (1857-1860). 


524 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


new  birth,  and  on  this  basis  he  essays  to  construct  a  speculative 
system  answering  to  the  facts  of  Christianity.  Von  Hofmann  was 
vigorously  attacked  within  his  school  for  giving  up  the  doctrine  of 
vicarious  Atonement.  Thomasius  is  justly  esteemed  for  his  solid 
ability  both  as  a  writer  on  Dogmatic  theology  and  on  the  history 
of  doctrine.  In  his  treatise  on  “  Dogmatics,”  he  advocated  the 
theory  of  Kenosis,  or  the  self-limitation  of  the  Divine  Logos,  in 
connection  with  the  Incarnation. 

The  “Ritschlian  School”  is  so  named  from  Albert  Ritschl  (1822- 
1889),  who,  although  he  shows  in  important  points  of  his  teaching 
the  influence  of  Schleiermacher,  so  far  deviates  from  him  that  he 
is  regarded  as  holding  an  independent  position.  Ritschl  began 
as  an  adherent  of  the  Tubingen  School,  but  he  renounced  the 
leadership  of  Baur,  and  in  the  second  edition  of  his  book  on  the 
Rise  of  the  Old  Catholic  Church  (1857)  he  traverses  Baur’s  main 
propositions.  It  is  a  work  of  high  merit.  Later  he  assumed  an 
independent  position,  the  characteristics  of  which  are  brought  out 
in  the  copious  work  on  Justification  especially,  and  in  other  pro¬ 
ductions.1  '  Religion  he  traces  to  the  conflict  of  the  soul  of  man 
with  the  opposing,  oppressive  forces  of  nature.  The  sense  of 
weakness  leads  to  the  belief  in  the  aid  of  more  exalted  spirits. 
But  religion  is  not  exclusively  a  feeling  of  dependence.  It  em¬ 
braces,  likewise,  thought  and  will.  Like  Schleiermacher,  Ritschl 
breaks  the  link  between  theology  and  philosophy.  He  does  not, 
however,  utterly  discard  metaphysics,  as  he  distinctly  asserts. 
Rather  is  he  in  concord  with  Kant  in  setting  aside  transcendental 
reasoning  concerning  religion,  and  adopting  the  ethical  postulate 
of  freedom.  To  Lotze  he  is  here  and  there  indebted.  No  inter¬ 
ference  with  theology  from  the  side  of  natural  science  is  possible ; 
for  natural  science  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  world  as  a  whole, 
and  steps  beyond  its  province  when  it  sets  up  a  theory  of  materi- 

1  Die  Christl.  Lehre  v.  d.  Rechtfertigung  u.  Versohnung  (2  ed.  3  vols.  1882). 
Among  the  numerous  critical  discussions  of  Ritschl’s  system,  two  brief  essays 
may  be  here  mentioned;  the  first  entirely  favorable,  the  other,  on  the  whole 
decidedly  adverse  :  Darstellung  d.  Theol.  Albert  Ritschl’s,  by  Julius  Thikolter 
(2  ed.  1887)  ;  Ritschl’ s  Place  in  the  History  of  Doctrine,  by  Charles  M.  Mead, 
D.D.,  1895.  Kattenbusch’s  Von  Schleiermacher  zn  Ritschl,  by  a  Ritschlian, 
is  clear  and  interesting,  but  it  quite  fails  of  a  just  appreciation  of  the  “  media¬ 
ting”  theologians.  A  critical  discussion  of  The  Ritschlian  Theology  in  its 
different  Stages  may  be  found  in  Nippold’s  comprehensive  Handbuch  d.  neues- 
ten  Kirchengesch.,  Vol.  III.,  Abth.  1. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


525 


alism  or  its  opposite.  Miracles  are  defined  by  Ritschl  as  strik¬ 
ing  natural  occurrences  “  with  which  the  special  help  of  God  is 
connected.”  If  supernatural  events  appear  to  be  recorded  in 
the  Bible,  there  is  no  religious  obligation  to  consider  them  to  be 
wrought  “  contrary  to  natural  laws.”  Nothing  more  definite  is 
propounded  on  the  subject.  Unlike  Schleiermacher,  he  holds  fast 
to  the  personality  of  God,  and  makes  His  fundamental  attribute 
to  be  Love.  Respecting  the  sources  of  our  knowledge  of  God  and 
of  Christianity,  Ritschl  declares  that  we  are  confined  to  the  Script¬ 
ures  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments.  The  Greek  theology,  he 
avers,  was  made  to  rest  upon  a  cosmology  borrowed  from  the 
philosophers.  The  Schoolmen  built  likewise  upon  a  substruct¬ 
ure  the  materials  of  which  were  drawn  from  Plato  and  Aristotle ; 
and  theology  since  has  followed  their  example.  Instead  of  a 
“  natural  theology,”  independent  of  revelation,  the  Scriptures  ex¬ 
clusively  are  for  the  Christian  the  fountain  of  religious  knowledge.1 
They  are  historical  documents  bringing  to  us  the  knowledge  of  the 
revelation  made  to  the  prophets  and  through  Christ  and  the 
Apostles.  The  genuineness  of  the  fourth  Gospel  is  not  questioned 
by  Ritschl  himself.  It  was  defended  in  his  work  on  the  Rise  of  the 
Old  Catholic  Church .  But  his  doctrine  respecting  Christ  is  de¬ 
duced  from  the  first  three  Gospels,  for  the  reason,  it  would  seem, 
that  the  fourth  is  thought  to  be  colored  by  subjective  conceptions. 
The  Scriptures  give  us  the  record  of  the  manifestations  of  God’s 
“  righteousness,”  which  denotes  His  consistent  purpose  and  proced¬ 
ure  in  the  work  of  saving  His  people.  “Just”  and  “righteous,” 
Ritschl  contends,  are  used  by  Paul,  as  well  as  in  the  Old  Testament, 
not  in  the  judicial,  classical  sense,  but  as  including  an  element 
of  benevolence.  The  “  wrath  of  God  ”“  is  felt  and  exerted  only 
towards  wilful  and  inexcusable  transgressors.  In  the  Old  Testa¬ 
ment,  it  is  not  for  these,  but  for  offences  not  thus  grievous,  that 
sacrifices  avail.  The  life  of  Christ,  comprising  His  obedience  and 
His  suffering,  was  in  pursuance  of  a  vocation  of  which  He  was 
conscious.  He  was  inwardly  cognizant  of  the  divine  purpose  of 
saving  grace  or  righteousness,  and  of  Himself  as  called  to  carry  out 
this  purpose  in  founding  and  conducting  to  its  goal  the  kingdom 
of  the  redeemed.  There  is  no  penal  or  expiatory  quality  in  the 
death  of  Christ.  In  it  are  perfected  and  evinced  His  absolute 
fidelity  and  His  divine  calling.  How  Christ  became  cognizant  of 

1  Rechtfertigung  u.  Versohnung,  Vol.  III.  p.  181. 


526 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


this  eternal,  divine  purpose,  and  how  He  became  aware  of  His 
vocation  in  relation  to  it,  are  questions,  it  is  said,  which,  we  are 
incapable  of  answering.  The  preexistence  of  Christ  as  it  is  taught 
by  John,  Paul,  and  the  author  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  is 
their  subjective  conception.  The  only  real  preexistence  of  Christ 
is  in  the  divine  foreknowledge  and  predestination  and  as  being 
the  object  of  God’s  eternal  love.  As  such,  He  is  the  type  of  man¬ 
kind  as  predestined  for  the  kingdom  of  God.  On  account  of  Plis 
perfect  purity  and  fidelity,  because  He  overcame  the  world  and 
made  Himself  the  vehicle  in  whom  God’s  purpose  and  the  char¬ 
acter  of  God  are  manifest,  He  is  raised  to  the  right  hand  of  God. 
He  is  —  we  cannot  divine  how  —  entrusted  with  the  government 
of  the  world.  Therefore,  and  by  reason  of  His  unity  with  God  in 
love  and  purpose,  He  may  be  called  God  and  is  an  object  of  wor¬ 
ship.  |  It  is  not  by  a  coming  as  an  individual  into  personal  relation 
to  Christ  that  one  becomes  a  partaker  of  the  filial  relation  to  God, 
but  by  entering  into  the  kingdom  of  His  followers.  Hence  the 
high  place  accorded  to  the  Church  as  the  fellowship  of  believers. 
To  believe  in  Christ  is  to  appropriate  the  “  value  of  the  love  of 
God  ”  revealed  in  what  Christ  does  for  our  reconciliation  to  Him. 
The  expression  illustrates  the  idea  of  Ritschl  —  in  which  he  was 
anticipated  by  Lotze  —  of  “ value-judgments.”  tin  Ritschl  it 
signifies  that  we  can  only  know  what  God  and  things  divine  are 
in  themselves,  so  far  as  we  perceive  that  which  is  of  worth  in 
relation  to  our  salvation.  It  is  one  feature  of  Ritschl’s  teaching 
that  everything  of  a  “  mystical  ”  nature,  such  as  the  idea  of  per¬ 
sonal  union  and  communion  with  Christ,  is  discarded.  The  feeling 
towards  “  pietism  ”  is  nothing  short  of  antipathy.  Justification 
is  the  reception  of  the  siftfier,  conscious  of  his  guilt,  into  fellowship 
with  God.  Along  with  it  reconciliation,  or  the  harmony,  now  be¬ 
ginning,  of  his  will  with  the  design  of  God  respecting  His  kingdom, 
is  the  fundamental  condition  of  the  Christian  life.1 

Ritschl  adopts  the  general  view  that  redemption  presupposes 

1  Ritschl  has  given  this  summary  statement  of  his  theological  “standpoint  ”  : 
“  In  strictest  recognition  of  the  Revelation  of  God  through  Christ,  closest 
use  of  the  Holy  Scriptures  as  the  source  of  knowledge  of  the  Christian 
religion;  taking  of  Jesus  Christ  as  the  source  of  knowledge  for  all  parts  of  the 
system,  in  harmony  with  the  original  documents  of  the  Lutheran  Reformation 
with  respect  to  the  peculiarities  in  which  it  deviates  from  the  theology  of  the 
Middle  Ages.”  (From  a  letter  to  Dr.  Schaff,  in  the  supplement  to  Schaff’s 
Encycl. ,  p.  181,  note.) 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


527 

the  universality  of  sin.  But  sin  is  no  part  of  the  contents  of 
Revelation.  It  is  simply  a  fact  of  experience.  It  is  to  be  under¬ 
stood  by  reference  to  Jesus  and  the  idea  of  His  kingdom.  But 
the  New  Testament  does  not  assume  that  sin  is  an  inheritance. 
It  does  not  teach  the  Augustinian  doctrine.  Sin  results  from  the 
impulse  to  exercise  freedom  without  restraint,  —  a  native  im¬ 
pulse,  —  and  from  the  allurements  to  selfishness.  There  grows 
up  by  the  joint  action  of  many,  from  one  generation  to  another,  a 
kingdom  of  sin,  a  power  of  seduction,  but  this  brings  not  an  abso¬ 
lute  loss  of  freedom.  The  right  estimate  of  sin  and  of  its  guilt  is 
possible  only  in  the  light  of  Christ.  None  are  to  that  degree 
hardened  that  they  are  incapable  of  repentance.  Natural  evils 
are  to  be  counted  as  punishments  no  farther  than  the  individual 
conscience  so  interprets  them.  In  the  religious  sense  punishment 
is  the  deprivation,  more  or  less,  of  communion  with  God.  Death 
is  neither  to  be  considered  the  penalty  of  the  first  sin  nor  of  one’s 
own  personal  transgressions.  All  forgivable  sins  are  to  be  pro¬ 
nounced  sins  of  ignorance.  Whether  there  be  men,  and  who  they 
are,  if  there  be  any,  who  will  actually  reach  the  final  stage  of 
wilful  resistance  to  God,  it  is  beyond  our  power  to  say. 

Ritschl’s  doctrines  have  had  numerous  defenders  and  numerous 
opponents.  Among  the  latter,  strenuous  for  a  more  conservative 
theology,  are  Dieckhoff  and  Luthardt.1  They  maintain  that  the 
theory  of  “  value-judgments  ”  makes  the  question  what  God, 
Christ,  the  Resurrection,  are  in  themselves,  a  matter  of  indif¬ 
ference,  and  attaches  importance  only  to  our  judgment  of  their 
worth  to  ourselves ;  that  the  basis  for  denominating  Him  divine  is 
something  shared  or  to  be  shared  by  him  with  all  believers ;  that 
Justification  is  not  an  act  of  God  having  reispect  to  the  individual, 
but  a  subjective  enrolling  of  himself  in  the  body  to  which  that  act 
exclusively  relates,  and  that  its  ground,  moreover,  is  not  laid  in  the 
atoning  work  of  Christ. 

Discarding  as  irrelevant  in  relation  to  faith  the  historical  evi¬ 
dences  of  Revelation,  the  Ritschlians  attach  weight  to  the  corre¬ 
spondence  between  the  Christian  religion  and  the  needs  of  the 
soul.  This  perceived  conviction  is  corroborated  by  nature  and 
the  history  of  mankind.  How  shall  we  ascertain  the  contents  of 
the  consciousness  of  Christ  ?  How  shall  we  discriminate  between 

1  See,  also,  Prof.  C.  M.  Mead,  RitschPs  Place  in  the  History  of  Doctrine 

(1895)- 


528 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


that  which  is  verifiable  in  his  own  feelings  and  expressions,  and 
that  which  is  not  ?  The  Ritschlian  theologians  and  critics  afford 
examples  of  the  temptation  to  fall  back  upon  purely  subjective 
criteria  of  judgment  on  these  cardinal  questions  of  history  and 
criticism. 

Kaftan  is  one  of  the  ablest  representatives  of  the  Ritschlian 
tendency.  He  has  presented  his  system  in  two  connected  works, 
the  first  on  The  Nature  or  Essence  of  Christianity /  and  the 
second  having  for  its  title  The  Truth  of  Christianity .1 2  He  founds 
religion  upon  feeling,  but  not  in  the  exclusive  sense,  nor  with 
the  inferences,  of  Schleiermacher.  He  adopts  Ritschl’s  idea  of 
“  values.”  Religion  is  a  practical  matter.  It  springs,  not  from 
observations  of  the  world  and  theoretical  judgments,  but  from  our 
own  position  in  relation  to  the  world,  —  the  attitude  which  we, 
with  our  personal  interests,  assume.  It  cannot  be  forced  on  any 
one,  like  the  truths  of  science.  “  It  is  an  affair  of  inward  free¬ 
dom.”3  This  is  true  of  all  religions.  A  religion  is  true  so  far, 
and  only  so  far,  as  it  rests  upon  revelation.4  “  Our  religion  is 
founded  on  the  self-revelation  of  God  in  the  historical  personal 
life  of  Jesus  Christ.”5  It  brings  to  pass  in  the  believer  a  life  in 
God  through  Christ ;  but  this  union  to  God  is  ethical,  and  not  the 
contemplation  of  the  mystic.  The  kingdom  of  God  is  the  Christian 
idea  of  the  highest  good.<;  It  was  the  early  mistake  of  theology  to 
leave  this  idea,  and  to  found  itself,  through  a  mixture  with  Greek 
philosophy,  upon  the  conception  of  the  Logos.  Faith  was  turned 
into  something  theoretic,  a  stage  of  knowledge.  The  rise  of 
dogmas  brought  with  it  the  reign  of  authority  in  matters  of  belief. 
The  Scholastic  theology  made  dogmas  to  be  of  two  classes,  —  those 
springing  from  natural  reason,  and  those  having  a  supernatural 
source.  Protestantism,  notwithstanding  its  rectified  idea  of  faith, 
was  entangled  with  the  Roman  Catholic  theory.  It  took  the 
Scriptures  and  made  them  the  text- book  of  supernaturally  revealed 
doctrinal  propositions. 

Kant,  despite  the  dualism  of  his  system,  is  held  to  have  opened 
a  new  era  by  his  doctrine  of  the  practical  reason.  In  truth,  the 
idea  of  the  highest  good  is  at  the  basis  of  rational  speculation. 

1  Das  Wesen  des  Christenthums  (2  ed.  1888). 

2  Die  Wahrheit  des  Christenthums  (1889). 

3  Das  IVesen,  etc.  p.  50.  5  Ibid.  p.  202. 

4  Ibid.  p.  197.  6  Die  Wahrheit ,  etc.  p.  545. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


529 


Its  result  corresponds  with  the  teaching  of  Christianity  that  the 
highest  good  is  not  to  be  found  in  the  world,  but  in  the  super¬ 
terrestrial  kingdom  of  God. 

Kaftan  insists  that  the  Scriptures  are  the  documentary  sources 
of  historical  Christianity.  'They  are  the  source  of  the  divine  reve¬ 
lation.  But  the  New  Testament  writers  did  not  ascribe  to  their 
productions  the  inspiration  which  they  assumed  to  exist  in  the  case 
of  the  Old  Testament  record  of  God’s  revelations.  The  theologi¬ 
cal  idea  of  inspiration  works  ill  to  theology,  and  would  require  as 
a  supplement  an  inspired  exegesis.  Respecting  the  teaching  of 
Christ  Himself,  preference  is  to  be  given  decidedly  to  the  Synoptics. 
There  is  no  sufficient  ground  for  rejecting  the  Johannine  author¬ 
ship  of  the  fourth  Gospel.  The  author  has,  however,  a  particular 
aim  and  point  of  view,  although  what  he  writes  rests  upon  a  his¬ 
torical  foundation.  The  essential  truth  of  Christianity  is  the 
divinity  of  Christ,  the  real  indwelling  and  the  complete  revelation 
of  God  in  Him.  The  beginning  of  the  new  life  is  in  the  belief  in 
the  free,  unconditional  forgiveness  of  sins.  This  is  justification, 
which  is  followed  by  reconciliation.  The  preaching  of  the  king¬ 
dom,  after  the  death  of  Jesus,  became  in  the  mouth  of  the  disci¬ 
ples  the  proclamation  of  the  risen  and  glorified  Jesus.  The  death 
and  resurrection  of  Christ  are  the  two  sides,  the  negative  and  posi¬ 
tive,  of  the  same  transaction.  They  are  the  symbol  and  the  power 
of  the  death  to  sin  and  the  resurrection  to  life  in  fellowship  with 
the  risen  Lord.  The  opinion  that  other  views : —  the  forensic  view, 
especially  —  are  found  in  Paul,  is  avowed  by  Kaftan,  but  it  is  held 
that  ,as  yet  we  discern  no  method  of  connecting  them  with  the 
fundamental  idea  just  expressed.  In  general,  “  we  are  to  turn  to 
account  ( verwerihen )  the  Apostolic  writings  first  of  all  as  the  testi¬ 
monies  of  the  faith  and  of  the  religion  of  their  authors,  —  that  is, 
of  the  Christian  religion,  in  which  they  are  for  us  normative  pat¬ 
terns  (  Vorbilder ) .  The  key-note  (  Grundton ) ,  despite  the  theo¬ 
logical  coloring,  is  in  their  character  as  “  testimonies  of  faith  to 
faith.”  1 

One  of  the  most  distinguished  representatives  of  the  Ritschlian 
School  is  W.  Herrman.  The  view  which  we  take  of  the  world  as 
a  whole,  or  the  world-whole  (Weltanschauung) ,  depends  on  sub¬ 
jective  grounds.  Its  source  is  in  moral  and  religious  feeling.  Its 
root  is  in  the  feeling  of  personal  worth  which  demands  that  the 

1  Das  Wesen,  etc.  p.  248. 


2  M 


530 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


world-whole  shall  be  suited  to  it.  In  this  general  position  he  does 
not  differ  from  Kaftan.  Revelation  is  not  by  doctrine,  but  by  the 
direct  manifestation  of  God  in  the  historical  Christ,  which  the  soul 
feels.  But  Herrman  distinctly  indicates  the  necessity  of  a  ground¬ 
work  of  objective  beliefs  respecting  the  person  of  Christ,  and  takes 
a  step  in  advance  of  the  Ritschlian  agnosticism.  He  says  that  the 
question  how  Christ  can  have  such  importance  for  us  may  be  un¬ 
avoidable,  and  that  here  the  Christological  determinations  of  the 
ancient  Church  “  still  always  mark  out  the  limits  within  which  such 
attempts  must  move.”  1  Kaftan  shows  the  same  tendency  to  go 
back  of  mere  “  value-judgments.”  He  says  that  we  must  believe 
in  the  Godhead  of  Christ,  and  that  He  stands  in  a  connection  with 
God  that  is  perfectly  unique  and  not  capable  of  being  repeated.2 

1  Der  Verkehr  des  Christen  mit  Gott  (1846),  p.  46. 

2  Brauchen  wir  ein  neues  Dogma  ?  p.  58.  Cf.  Orr,  The  Christian  View 
of  God  and  the  World  (a  work  of  remarkable  ability),  p.  449  sq.  (1893). 


CHAPTER  VIII 


THE  PANTHEISTIC  DEVELOPMENT  OF  PHILOSOPHY  AND  THEOLOGY 

IN  GERMANY  :  FICHTE  ;  SCHELLING  ;  HEGEL - THE  HEGELIAN 

INTERPRETATION  OF  CHRISTIANITY - THE  WRITINGS  OF  STRAUSS 

- BIEDERMANN - THE  SYSTEM  OF  BAUR 

The  theoretical  philosophy  of  Kant  bore  fruit  which  he  had 
not  expected  to  spring  from  it.  In  the  hands  of  Fichte  it  was 
transformed  into  idealism.  Kant  had  refused  to  regard  the  laws 
of  thought  as  the  laws  of  things.  Space  and  time  are  “  forms  ”  in 
which  perceived  phenomena,  are  set  by  the  subject ;  the  categories 
by  which  things  are  connected  are  concepts,  likewise  subjective  in 
their  origin ;  the  ideas  which  bring  into  unity  the  judgments  are 
subjective  index-fingers  which  point  to  nothing  that  can  be  con¬ 
sidered  real.  Nothing  external  is  left  but  the  “  thing  in  itself.” 
Fichte  drew  this  sole  object  within  the  subjective  sphere.  It  is 
only  a  thought.  If  it  be  assumed  as  a  cause  to  account  for  states 
of  consciousness,  the  answer  is  that  the  principle  of  causation  is 
purely  subjective.  Fichte’s  thesis  is  that  all  reality  is  the  product 
of  the  activity  of  the  ego,  which  in  its  nature  is  essentially  active. 
The  object  is  simply  the  limit  set  to  its  activity  by  its  own  nature. 
But  the  finite  ego  with  the  object  is  the  product  of  the  impersonal 
ego,  the  underlying,  absolute  source  of  being.  In  the  room  of  God 
there  is  substituted  the  moral  order  of  the  world.  Philosophy  begins 
in  the  positing  of  the  ego  through  an  act  of  reflection.  Ethics  is 
exalted  to  the  supreme  place.  Morality  and  religion  are  identical. 
The  limit  of  personal  freedom  is  in  the  concession  of  a  like  equal 
freedom  in  others.  In  the  later  part  of  his  career,  Fichte  intro¬ 
duced  an  element  of  feeling  into  the  notion  of  religion,  but  the 
conception  of  Deity  would  appear  to  have  remained  unaltered. 

Schelling  modified  Fichte’s  conception  of  the  Absolute,  the  root 
of  all  particular  existences.  It  is  no  more  to  be  called  subject 

53i 


532 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


than  object.  It  is  equidistant  —  the  point  of  indifference  — 
between  the  subjective  and  the  objective,  for  the  world  and  the 
perceiving  ego  are  identical  in  essence  and  origin.  Nature  is 
pervaded  through  and  through  with  rationality.  'The  knowledge  of 
nature  is  nature  attaining  to  self-consciousness.  But  how  to  cog¬ 
nize  the  hypothetical  Absolute  consistently  with  its  being  an  object 
in  consciousness  and  thus,  according  to  Schelling’s  theory,  finite? 
The  answer  is  the  postulate  of  a  mystical  faculty  of  “  intellectual 
intuition,”  by  which  the  soul,  somewhat  as  in  the  New  Platonic 
Pantheism,  breaks  through  the  bonds  of  consciousness,  and  has 
a  direct  vision  of  the  indefinable  —  impersonal,  of  course  — 
Supreme. 

Schelling’s  general  idea  of  the  relation  of  the  Absolute  to  the 
thinking  subject  and  the  object  Hegel  accepted.  Not  so  did  he 
regard  Schelling’s  mode  of  bridging  the  gulf  between  the  finite 
and  the  infinite.  This  had  been  left  in  the  dark.  The  conclu¬ 
sion  of  Schelling’s  as  to  their  relation  had  been,  as  it  were,  “  shot 
out  of  a  pistol.”  Hegel  professed  to  set  forth  the  process  in  which 
the  entire  universe  is  evolved,  and  necessarily  evolved.  Thought 
and  being  are  identical.  Thoughts  are  things,  and  there  are  no 
other  things  than  thoughts.  The  world  is  a  chain  of  concepts. 
The  universe,  including  God,  nature,  self,  is  resolved  into  a  chain 
of  concepts  self- evolved,  comprising  and  exhausting  in  themselves 
all  reality.  Concrete  existences  take  their  places  as  concepts  in 
the  all- comprehending  series.  This  is  the  world  as  known  to  the 
philosopher.  But  the  philosophic  view  is  the  last  stage  in  the 
development  of  consciousness.  It  is  in  the  consciousness  of 
the  philosopher  that  the  Deity,  the  Absolute,  becomes  fully  self- 
conscious.  The  process  is  the  self-unfolding  of  the  innermost 
nature  of  things.  The  method  of  this  evolution,  starting  with  the 
highest  abstraction,  thence  moving  onward,  is  that  of  thesis,  of 
implied  antithesis,  and  necessary  synthesis  —  the  movement  ad¬ 
vancing,  by  a  momentum  in  itself,  until  all  things  are  brought  into 
the  net. 

Hegel  and  his  followers  professed  to  find  an  equivalent  for  the 
objects  of  Christian  faith  and  the  propositions  of  orthodox  theology 
in  the  dogmas  of  their  system.  Christianity  presents  in  a  popular 
form  that  which  philosophy  exhibits  in  the  form  of  naked  truth. 
The  substantial  contents  of  both  are  averred  to  be  identical. 
The  Trinity  is  made  to  designate  the  triplicity  in  the  notion  of  the 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


533 


Absolute  :  first,  the  Absolute  in  itself ;  secondly,  as  developed  in 
the  intelligible  world,  corresponding  to  the  Son ;  and  thirdly,  in 
the  philosophy  in  which  the  Absolute  comes  back  to  itself.  The 
sense  of  estrangement  in  man  is  sin,  a  necessary  phase  in  his  spir¬ 
itual  progress,  which  gives  way  to  a  consciousness  of  unity  with 
the  Absolute.  Christ  is  a  man  who  is  conscious  of  being  one  with 
the  Infinite  Being,  and  represents  in  this  respect  what  every  man 
is  in  idea.  That  which  is  predicated  of  Him  specifically  is  true 
literally  of  humanity  as  a  whole.  Hegel  treated  with  disdain  the 
“vulgar”  rationalism  which  assailed  the  truths  of  Christianity. 
He  professed,  no  doubt  sincerely,  to  accept  them  in  their  real, 
inner  significance.  At  first,  not  a  few  hailed  this  assumed  recon¬ 
ciliation  of  Christianity  and  philosophy.  A  portion  of  the  Hegel¬ 
ians,  forming  a  “  right  wing,”  either  by  affixing  to  Hegel’s  state¬ 
ments  an  interpretation  satisfactory  to  themselves,  or  by  certain 
modifications  of  expression,  continued  to  maintain  a  theistic  version 
of  Hegelianism.  But  when  Strauss  published  his  Life  of  Jesus ,  it 
became  obvious  to  discerning  Christian  believers  that  the  trans¬ 
mutation  of  the  truths  of  the  Gospel  into  Pantheistic  equivalents 
was  not  anything  to  rejoice  in.  Strauss  derided  the  rationalism 
of  the  Biblical  critics  like  Paulus,  as  superficial  and  jejune.  He 
undertook  to  show  that  the  narratives  of  miracles  in  the  New 
Testament  are  myths,  —  unconscious  embodiments  of  the  idea  of 
the  Messiah  that  was  cherished  in  early  communities  of  disciples 
cut  off  from  the  corrective  guidance  of  the  Apostles.  Strauss  held 
the  great  central  truth  of  Christianity  to  be  the  doctrine  of  a  union 
of  God  and  man  in  Jesus  Christ.  It  is  a  popular  conception  of  a 
deep  philosophical  truth,  —  the  truth,  namely,  that  God  becomes 
man  in  mankind  collectively  taken.  For  the  indwelling  and  full 
expression  of  the  Infinite,  all  the  members  of  the  race  are  required. 
Christ  is  divine  so  far  and  in  the  same  sense  as  every  other  indi¬ 
vidual  of  the  race  is  God.  And  God  is  the  impersonal  being,  of  the 
evolution  of  whom  all  men  are  the  transitory  products.  1  he  later  Life 
of  Jesus  by  Strauss  (1864)  was  designed  for  cultivated  readers  gen¬ 
erally.  Prompted  by  the  criticism  of  Baur  upon  his  earlier  work, 
he  discusses  the  origin  and  authorship  of  the  Gospels.  Prompted 
further  by  Baur’s  theory  of  a  doctrinal  tendency  as  giving  rise  to 
narrative  matter  in  the  historical  books  of  the  New  Testament,  he 
modified  essentially  his  definition  of  a  myth,  permitting  it  to  be  the 
product  of  the  imagination  of  an  individual,  and  made  room  for 


534 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


conscious  invention.  Strauss  and  Baur  conceded  that  the  imme¬ 
diate  disciples  of  Jesus  testified  to  His  Resurrection.  Strauss  falls 
back  upon  a  kind  of  Stoicism  as  a  substitute  for  the  consolations 
of  religion,  and,  in  contrast  with  the  previous  work,  manifests  a 
scornful  and  bitter  spirit,  especially  towards  the  clergy.  In  his 
treatise  on  Dogmatic  Theology,  the  negative  position  respecting 
the  Supernatural  is  consistently  carried  out.  Strauss’s  learning 
was  not  up  to  the  level  of  his  literary  power.  Superior  in  all 
respects  to  this  work  is  the  treatise  on  “  Dogmatic  Theology  ”  by 
Biedermann,  a  leader  of  the  “  young  Hegelian  School,”  who,  in  his 
Christian  Dogmatics ,  as  in  other  writings,  did  what  could  be  done 
to  infuse  warmth  into  a  system  which  rejects  the  personality  of 
God  and  personal  immortality.  In  the  idea  of  God  as  personal, 
the  mind  objectifies  “  His  universal,  eternal,  absolute,  true  nature 
(  Wesen ).”  Yet  it  is  held  that  in  the  practical  religious  life  the 
notion  of  God  as  personal  must  be  held  fast.  Sin,  although  it  is  a 
self-determination  in  which  sense  and  selfish  feeling  are  the  source, 
is  a  necessary  step  or  stage  for  a  finite  being  to  experience.' 
Neither  creeds  nor  the  Bible,  nor  the  “  theoretic  self-consciousness 
of  Jesus,”  can  be  an  infallible  norm  of  belief.  Biedermann  under¬ 
takes,  and  with  no  small  skill  and  learning,  to  trace  forms  of  doc¬ 
trinal  conception  in  the  New  Testament  to  divers  historical  sources, 
and  to  prove  them  unworthy  of  a  literal  acceptance. 

The  influence  of  Hegelianism  on  theology  is  most  conspicuous 
in  its  effect  in  the  province  of  historical  and  Biblical  criticism. 
In  this  province  Baur  was  the  master.  His  theories  respecting 
the  rise  and  development  of  Christianity  and  the  date  and 
authorship  of  the  New  Testament  writings  conform  to  the 
Hegelian  law  of  development.  The  Gospel  is  at  first  Ebionitic, 
then  comes  the  liberal  or  Pauline  antithesis,  then  a  synthesis  in  the 
Acts  and  certain  Epistles,  pronounced  to  be  post-apostolic.  The 
fourth  Gospel,  after  the  middle  of  the  second  century,  completes 
the  process  of  reconciliation,  but  the  evolution  of  doctrine  pro¬ 
ceeds  in  its  triple  movement  until  it  brings  us  to  the  Nicene 
doctrine.  Extensive  as  were  the  researches  of  Baur,  original  and 
sincerely  held  as  were  his  hypotheses,  the  agency  of  an  a  priori 
philosophy,  which  excludes  the  Supernatural  in  its  proper  meaning, 
in  the  forming  of  his  critical  system,  cannot  be  ignored. 

In  the  writings  of  Otto  Pfleiderer,  especially  in  his  work  on 
the  Philosophy  of  Religion ,  there  is  presented  a  theology  which 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


535 


attempts  to  combine  the  essential  principle  of  Schleiermacher 
respecting  the  original  source  of  religion,  with  Hegel.  But,  unlike 
Rothe,  Pfleiderer,  although  he  holds  to  the  personality  of  God  and 
the  freedom  of  His  agency,  discards  miracles,  and  plants  himself  on 
the  ground  of  naturalism. 


CHAPTER  IX 


THE  LATER  ROMAN  CATHOLIC  THEOLOGY - INDIFFERENTISM  IN  THE 

EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY - THE  FALL  OF  THE  JESUIT  ORDER  AND 

ITS  REVIVAL - LIBERALISM  OF  LAMENNAIS  AND  HIS  ASSOCIATES - 

PAPAL  REIGN  OF  PIUS  IX.  —  THE  DOGMA  OF  THE  IMMACULATE 
CONCEPTION  —  THE  VATICAN  COUNCIL  AND  THE  DOGMA  OF  PAPAL 
INFALLIBILITY - THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  THE  DOGMA 

The  Council  of  Trent  was  chiefly  absorbed  in  the  work  of  build¬ 
ing  up  barricades  against  Protestantism.  It  left  undecided  the 
questions  between  Episcopalism  and  Curialism :  Is  the  seat  of 
authority  in  the  Council  or  in  the  Pope,  or  is  it  in  both  united  ? 
It  gave  no  unambiguous  verdict  on  the  disputed  question  of  grace 
and  free-will.  The  question  respecting  the  sinless  character  of 
Mary  from  the  moment  of  conception  remained  where  the  Scho¬ 
lastic  theology  had  left  it,  awaiting  a  dogmatic  decision.  Time 
was  to  decide  what  would  be  the  fate  of  the  Semi- Pelagian  theol¬ 
ogy  of  the  Jesuits,  and  of  their  loose  ethical  theory  of  probabilism. 
With  the  fortunes  of  their  society,  the  modern  history  of  Roman 
Catholic  doctrine  is  closely  connected. 

In  the  Church  of  France,  under  Louis  XIV.,  Jansenism  was 
prostrated,  the  Jesuit  theology  got  the  upper  hand,  and  the  Jesuit 
casuistry  made  headway,  despite  the  attacks  of  the  Port  Royalists. 
In  the  eighteenth  century,  the  spread  of  free-thinking  and  of 
religious  indifferentism  incited  and  enabled  Roman  Catholic  sov¬ 
ereigns  to  restrict  to  the  utmost  the  exercise  of  papal  prerogatives 
within  their  dominions.  The  reforms  of  the  Emperor  Joseph  II., 
in  Austria,  were  prepared  for  by  the  work  of  Febronius,  which 
advocated  the  reduction  of  papal  authority  to  a  simple  primacy, 
limited  as  concerns  other  bishops  to  the  giving  of  counsels  and 
admonitions.  Innovations  like  those  of  Joseph  II.  were  adopted 
in  other  states.  The  “  punctation  ”  or  programme  of  German 

536 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


537 


Catholic  archbishops  who  met  at  Ems  in  1 786,  proposed,  in  the 
interest  of  German  prelates,  to  subtract  from  the  papacy  a  large 
portion  of  the  ecclesiastical  prerogatives  which  it  had  exercised. 
Movements  of  this  kind  in  different  lands,  among  statesmen  and 
churchmen,  were  broken  off  by  the  outbreaking  of  the  French 
Revolution.  The  Society  of  the  Jesuits  owed  its  temporary  down¬ 
fall  to  its  interference  with  politics,  its  worldliness  and  thirst  for 
gain.  Its  obstinate  contests  with  other  orders,  and  with  the  popes 
themselves,  in  the  conduct  of  Asiatic  missions,  had  weakened  its 
standing.  It  was  its  own  practical  renunciation  of  the  ideals  of 
its  founders,  however,  that,  more  than  any  other  single  cause,  led 
to  its  overthrow,  and  to  its  abolition  by  Clement  XIV.  in  1773. 
The  record  of  the  period  during  which  Napoleon  I.  was  supreme 
in  France  includes  the  story  of  alternate  concessions  and  resist¬ 
ance  on  the  part  of  Pius  VII.  Of  this  course  of  events  it  is  true 
that,  great  as  was  the  prostration  of  papal  authority,  the  result  was 
that  imperial  domination,  with  Rome  for  a  real,  although  incon¬ 
stant  ally,  extinguished  the  life  of  liberal  Gallicanism,  and,  on  the 
fall  of  Napoleon,  left  the  ground  clear  for  the  building  of  ultramon- 
tanism  on  its  ruins.  In  France  this  could  be  done  only  by  degrees. 
But,  as  elsewhere,  the  reaction  in  behalf  of  the  throne  and  the 
altar  had  its  effect.  One  of  the  first  measures  of  Pius  VII.,  on 
his  restoration  to  Rome,  was  the  issue  of  a  bull,  on  August  7,  1814, 
authorizing  the  revival  of  the  Jesuit  order.  The  Jesuits  spared 
no  effort  to  exalt  the  cause  of  absolutism  in  politics  and  religion. 
After  the  restoration  of  the  Bourbons,  an  extreme  theory  of  the 
spiritual  authority  of  the  Pope,  as  the  great  security  of  public  order, 
was  vindicated  by  Le  Maistre,  a  scholar  and  diplomatist.  After  the 
accession  of  Louis  Philippe,  the  same  tendency  was  pursued  by 
Lamennais,  Lacordaire,  Montalembert,  and  some  others.  Their 
contention  was  in  behalf  of  liberal  opinions  in  politics,  together 
with  an  anti-Gallican  theory  of  papal  sovereignty  in  the  spiritual 
sphere.  But  their  teachings  were  condemned  in  bulls  of  Pope 
Gregory  XVI.,  the  first  in  1832  and  the  second  in  1834.1  Lamen¬ 
nais  became  alienated  from  the  Church.  Lacordaire  concentrated 
his  attention  upon  preaching,  and  became  a  great  light  in  the 
French  pulpit.  Montalembert  kept  up  an  undiminished  interest 
in  Church  affairs,  and  retained  his  liberal  opinions  to  the  end  of 
his  life.  There  is  not  room  here  to  trace  the  growth  of  ultramon- 

1  Extracts  in  Denziger,  pp.  343-346. 


538 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


tanism  and  of  Jesuit  influence  in  the  different  Catholic  countries. 
One  of  the  most  influential  of  all  Catholic  writers  on  matters  of 
casuistry  was  not  himself  a  Jesuit,  but  very  friendly  to  that  order, 
the  founder  of  the  Redemptorists,  the  Neapolitan  priest  and  saint, 
Alfonso  da  Liguori  (1696-1787).  He  was  at  first  a  Probabilist, 
but  sought  for  a  middle  position  in  “  Equiprobabilism,”  —  a  posi¬ 
tion  not  far  removed  from  the  Jesuit  ground.  If  the  law  con¬ 
cerning  an  act,  he  held,  is  doubtful,  if  the  authorities  are  evenly 
balanced,  the  maxim  that  right  is  on  the  side  of  the  “possessor”1 
—  that  is,  on  the  side  of  liberty  to  do  the  act  —  is  applicable.  A 
well-nigh  boundless  deference  is  paid  to  the  casuistic  teaching  of 
Liguori,  which,  however  —  on  the  subject  of  Equivocation,  for 
example — would  be  condemned  by  Protestant  moralists.  In 
Germany  there  sprung  up  in  the  second  and  third  decades  of  the 
present  century  a  school  of  liberal  Catholics,  eminent  alike  for 
their  learning  and  their  controversial  strength.  Its  rise  is  due  to 
the  influence  of  a  theologian  not  less  engaging  in  his  manners  and 
captivating  as  a  teacher,  than  he  was  brilliant  in  talents,  —  John 
Adam  Mohler.  In  his  most  important  work,  The  Symbolics ,  he 
rejects  the  Episcopal  system  as  it  was  set  forth  by  the  councils  of 
Constance  and  of  Basel  —  the  doctrine  that  “  the  Pope  is  subject 
to  a  general  council  lawfully  convoked.”2  He  calls  it  “  one-sided.” 
His  ground  is  that  “  the  dogmatic  decrees  of  the  Episcopate 
(united  with  the  general  head  and  centre)  are  infallible ;  for  it 
represents  the  universal  Church.”3  One  of  Mohler’s  pupils  was 
Hefele,  a  profound  scholar,  the  author  of  the  History  of  Councils. 
Munich  became  the  seat  of  the  liberal  school.  Its  most  eminent 
leader,  Dollinger,  was  the  author  of  learned  historical  works  antag¬ 
onistic  to  Protestantism ;  but  in  later  writings,  prior  to  the  breaking 
out  of  the  controversy  on  the  question  of  infallibility,  manifested 
a  highly  appreciative  view  of  the  greatness  of  Luther,  and  a  more 
irenical  spirit  in  relation  to  the  churches  of  the  Reformation. 

Pius  IX.  assumed  the  papal  office  in  1846.  He  began  with  a 
policy  directly  the  reverse  of  that  of  his  predecessor,  Gregory  XIX. 
He  showed  himself  friendly  to  the  liberal  Catholics  in  France. 
He  introduced  railways  and  other  modern  improvements  into  the 
Roman  state.  He  favored  civil  freedom  there  and  a  constitu- 

1  “Melior  est  conditio  possidentis.”  See  the  Kirchen-Lexicon  (1st  ed. 
Vol.  VIII.  p.  791 ;  also,  2d  ed.  Vol.  VII.  pp.  2036,  2037). 

2  Eng.  Transl.  p.  301  n.  3  Ibid.  p.  302. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


539 


tional  monarchy.  Not  able  to  satisfy  the  demands  of  the  repub¬ 
licans,  he  was  forced,  in  1848,  to  fly  from  Rome  to  Gaeta,  where 
he  remained  until  he  was  restored,  in  1850,  by  means  of  French 
bayonets.  He  came  back  an  altered  man  in  his  spirit  and  aims. 
Thenceforward  in  civil  and  ecclesiastical  relations  he  was  an 
extreme  conservative.  He  took  into  his  service,  under  his  special 
control,  a  group  of  Jesuit  writers,  by  whom  the  Civilta  Cattolica 
was  issued,  a  journal  devoted  to  the  advocacy  of  an  intense  ultra- 
montanism.  Enthusiastic  from  his  youth  in  the  homage  he  paid 
to  the  Virgin  Mary,  he  conceived  that  it  was  by  her  special  aid 
that  he  had  escaped  with  his  life  in  the  revolutionary  tempest. 
In  1849,  while  at  Gaeta,  in  an  Encyclical  Letter,  he  called  for  the 
opinions  of  all  bishops  upon  the  subject  of  'the  immaculate  con¬ 
ception  of  the  Virgin.  A  large  majority  —  about  two-thirds  of 
those  who  made  answer  —  replied  as  the  Pope  desired  that  they 
should ;  but  others,  including  German  and  French  bishops,  ex¬ 
pressed  themselves  on  the  other  side.  To  consider  the  question 
a  commission  was  appointed,  comprising  in  it  leading  Jesuit  theo¬ 
logians,  such  as  Perrone  and  Passaglia.  Its  decision  was  in  accord 
with  the  Pope’s  inclination.  In  1854,  without  assembling  a  council 
to  determine  the  question,  in  the  presence  of  about  two  hundred 
bishops,  forming  a  part  of  a  great  concourse,  Pius  IX.  declared  it 
to  be  a  revealed  truth  that  the  Blessed  Virgin,  from  the  first  instant 
of  her  conception,  “  was  preserved  free  from  all  stain  of  Original 
Sin.”  The  bull  affirmed  that  all  “who  should  think  otherwise  in 
their  hearts  must  ”  have  made  shipwreck  concerning  the  faith, 
and  fallen  away  from  the  unity  of  the  Church.1  This  dogmatic 
definition  contradicts  the  opinion  of  Anselm,  St.  Bernard,  Bonaven- 
tura,  Aquinas,  and  with  Aquinas  the  body  of  Dominican  teachers 
down  to  recent  times.  Yet  it  is  undeniable  that  it  was  a  goal  to 
which  a  succession  of  previous  steps  naturally  led.  It  sanctioned 
an  opinion  which  had  been  gaining  strength  since  the  advocacy  of 
it  by  Duns  Scotus.  Not  later  than  1661,  Pope  Alexander  VII. 
had  expressed  himself  on  the  doctrine  in  language  almost  identical 
with  that  used  by  Pius  IX.,  and  only  declined  to  pronounce  the 
opposite  opinion  heretical. 

On  December  8,  1864,  Pius  IX.  sent  out  an  Encyclical  Letter 
containing  an  extended  syllabus  of  errors.  The  preface  quotes 

1  For  the  substance  of  the  bull  (“  Ineffabilis  Deus”),  see  Denziger,  p.  356, 
or  Schaff,  Creeds  of  Christendom ,  Vol.  II.  p.  21 1. 


540 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


with  approval  the  encyclical  of  Gregory  XVI.,  of  August  13, 
1832,  against  Lamennais  and  the  Liberals,  in  which  “  insanity  ” 
( deliramentum )  is  the  name  given  to  the  doctrine  that  “liberty  of 
conscience  and  of  worship  is  the  right  of  every  man,”  and  the  doc¬ 
trine  of  the  liberty  of  the  press.  Catholics  are  exhorted,  in  the  perils 
of  the  times,  to  resort  to  the  Virgin  Mary  as  their  “  mediatrix  ” 
with  Christ,  and  to  beseech  the  intervention  of  Peter,  “  the  chief 
of  the  Apostles,”  and  of  Paul.  The  Syllabus  denounces  eighty 
alleged  errors,  which  may  be  summed  up  under  the  heads  of 
Rationalism,  Nationalism,  and  Liberalism,  as  these  were  regarded 
by  the  eyes  of  the  Pontiff.  Among  the  baneful  errors  condemned 
are  these  :  That  Roman  Pontiffs  have  exceeded  their  power  in 
relation  to  princes,  or  have  erred  “  in  defining  matters  of  faith  and 
morals  (23)  ;  that  the  Church  may  not  avail  itself  of  force  (24)  ; 
that  schools  may  be  freed  from  ecclesiastical  authority,”  govern¬ 
ment  and  interference  (47)  ;  that  Church  and  State  ought  to  be 
separated  (55)  ;  that  there  may  be  a  true  marriage  by  a  merely 
civil  contract  (73).  The  Syllabus  was  made  up  from  the  contents 
of  previous  allocutions,  letters,  and  bulls  of  Pius  IX.  It  was 
intended  to  put  into  a  compact  form  his .  manifold  protests  in 
opposition  to  the  spirit  of  the  age.  An  attempt  to  turn  the 
edge  of  it  was  made  in  France  by  Dupanloup,  Bishop  of  Orleans, 
by  affirming  that  it  was  aimed  not  against  liberty  but  the  lawless 
abuses  of  liberty. 

To  an  assembly  of  five  hundred  bishops,  gathered  at  Rome  in 
honor  of  the  eighteenth  centenary  of  St.  Peter’s  martyrdom,  Pius 
IX.  first  announced  his  intention  to  convoke  a  General  Council. 
This  was  on  June  26,  1867.  On  the  29th  of  June,  1868,  the  en¬ 
cyclical  was  issued  for  its  convocation.  It  was  understood  to  be  the 
purpose  of  the  Council  to  build  up  such  a  wall  against  the  errors 
of  the  day  as  the  Council  of  Trent  had  erected  against  Prot¬ 
estantism.  The  Pope  always  said  that  it  was  no  part  of  his  pur¬ 
pose  to  bring  forward  the  matter  of  papal  infallibility.  The  design 
was  to  reassert  in  a  positive  form  the  doctrines  embraced  in  the 
Syllabus,  and  to  attach  to  them  a  new  sanction.  But  in  an  article 
published  in  the  Civilta  Cattolica ,  on  February  6,  1869,  the  infallibil¬ 
ity  of  the  Pope  was  declared  to  be  one  of  the  points  to  be  decreed. 
The  same  thing  was  proclaimed  elsewhere  by  Archbishop  Manning 
and  other  infallibilists.  Liberal  Catholics  were  aroused.  A  power¬ 
ful  and  learned  attack  on  the  doctrine  of  papal  infallibility  was 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


541 


published  in  1869,  “  The  Pope  and  the  Council,”  by  Janus,  —  the 
production,  it  is  understood,  of  Bollinger,  Friedrich,  and  Huber 
of  the  University  of  Munich.  Ketteler,  Bishop  of  Mayence, 
Maret,  Dean  of  the  Paris  Theological  Faculty,  and  others,  pub¬ 
lished  books  on  the  same  side.  The  Council  was  opened  on  Decem¬ 
ber  8,  1869.  There  were  present  719  members.  Preliminary 
commissions,  appointed  by  the  Pope,  had  discussed  and  determined 
the  matter  to  be  submitted  for  consideration.  At  the  outset,  a 
bull  of  the  Pope  laid  down  the  rules  of  procedure.  He  was  to 
nominate  the  officers  of  the  Council.  Whatever  proposals  should 
be  made  by  bishops  were  to  be  submitted  to  a  commission  selected 
by  him,  and  consisting  half  of  Italians.  If  a  proposal  were  ap¬ 
proved  by  the  commission,  it  must  have  the  sanction  of  the  Pope 
before  it  could  be  discussed.  When  a  decree  had  been  discussed, 
it  went  to  one  of  the  four  special  commissions  to  be  corrected, 
and  must  then  be  voted  upon  without  debate.  The  papal  theolo¬ 
gians  were  predominant  in  all  these  committees.  A  new  regula¬ 
tion  (on  the  2 2d  of  February,  1870)  reversed  the  old  rule  that 
required  unanimity  for  a  dogmatic  decision,  and  substituted  for  it 
a  numerical  majority.  A  protest,  dated  March  1,  against  this  un¬ 
exampled  rule,  although  signed  by  more  than  one  hundred  prelates, 
was  of  no  avail.  There  were  strong  anti-infallibilists  who  dis¬ 
believed  in  the  proposed  doctrine.  Such  were  Hefele,  Archbishop 
Kenrick  of  St.  Louis,  and  Strossmayer.  Others,  of  whom  Dupan- 
loup  was  one,  opposed  the  dogmatic  definition  as  inopportune. 
At  the  stage  of  the  proceedings  when  a  private  vote  was  taken 
there  were  88  who  cast  negative  votes,  61  a  qualified  negative, 
and  91  abstained  from  voting,  although  present  in  Rome.  Out¬ 
side  of  Rome  there  was  an  intense  feeling  of  grief  and  indigna¬ 
tion  among  Catholics,  hostile,  on  various  grounds,  to  the  projected 
decree.  This  feeling  finds  expression  in  a  private  letter  of  Dr. 
Newman  to  his  bishop,  which  afterwards  found  its  way  into  print. 
“  Why,”  he  says,  “  should  an  aggressive,  insolent  faction  be  allowed 
‘  to  make  the  heart  of  the  just  sad,  whom  the  Lord  hath  not  made 
sorrowful?  ’  ”  After  it  was  found  that  no  modification  of  the  pro¬ 
jected  dogma  could  be  obtained,  fifty-six  bishops  in  a  written  pro¬ 
test  informed  the  Pope  of  their  resolve  to  return  to  their  dioceses. 
On  the  same  evening,  together  with  sixty  additional  members,  they 
left  Rome.  On  the  final  vote,  all  but  two  of  the  535  fathers  pres¬ 
ent  voted  “  Yea.”  In  the  debate,  there  were  not  wanting  eloquent 


542 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


voices,  notably  those  of  Strossmayer  and  Kenrick,  from  the 
ranks  of  the  opposition.  There  is  not  a  little  discrepancy  in  the 
different  reports  relative  to  the  proceedings  in  connection  with 
the  Council.  It  is  certain  that  the  influence  of  the  Pope  and  of 
his  supporters  was  strenuously  exerted  to  carry  their  measure  and 
to  quell  resistance.  It  is  certain  that  the  leaders  of  the  minority 
earnestly  complained  that  the  freedom  of  debate  was  crippled  by 
unjust  restrictions  and  unseemly  interruptions.  It  is  certain  that 
while  everything  in  favor  of  the  dominant  party  was  sent  out  from 
the  press  at  Rome,  the  writings  and  speeches  of  its  adversaries, 
like  Hefele’s  pamphlet  on  the  “  Honorius  Question,”  and  the  long 
argument  which  Kenrick  was  not  able  to  deliver,  had  to  be  printed 
elsewhere. 

The  majority  in  the  Council  was  united  and  resolute,  and  had 
every  aid  from  the  surrounding  circumstances.  The  minority  were 
weakened  by  the  fact  that  so  many  opposed  the  decree,  not  declar¬ 
ing  it  to  be  false,  but  merely  inopportune.  The  whole  force  of  the 
surrounding  circumstances  at  Rome  was  against  them.  Owing  to 
the  peculiar  political  situation  in  Europe,  the  governments  remained 
inert  when,  in  other  conditions,  they  would  have  spoken  with  effect. 
But  the  minority  was  fatally  hampered  by  the  previous  actual  exer¬ 
cise  of  the  disputed  prerogative  of  the  Pope  in  the  decree  of  the 
immaculate  conception,  which  had  been  received  with  acquiescence. 

The  question  is  often  asked,  How  could  the  Council  establish 
the  Pope’s  infallibility,  without  the  assumption  in  the  very  act  that 
in  the  Council  supreme  authority  resides?  The  answer  is,  that 
the  decree  was  not  the  act  of  the  Council,  but  the  act  of  the  Pon¬ 
tiff,  the  assent  of  the  Council  being  the  destruction  of  the  doctrine 
of  Episcopalism.  It  was  so  far  an  act  of  suicide  on  the  part  of  the 
defenders  of  the  conciliar  theory  as  to  the  seat  of  authority.  The 
Vatican  decrees  do  not  open  with  formulas  like  those  of  Trent : 
“The  sacred  and  holy,  oecumenical  and  general”  Synod  teaches  or 
declares  so  and  so ;  but  it  is  “We,”  that  is,  Pius  IX.,  “the  sacred 
Council  approving,  teach  and  define,”  etc.  The  Council  abrogates 
the  right  accorded  to  it  by  liberal  Catholicism  by  sanctioning  the 
Pope’s  declarations  that  “the  definitions  of  the  Roman  Pontiff  are 
irreformable  of  themselves,  and  not  from  the  consent  of  the  Church.” 

The  dogmatic  decree  declares  that  when  the  Pope  speaks 
ex  cathedi'ci ;  that  is,  when  in  his  character  of  “  pastor  and  doctor 
of  all  Christians,”  he  “  defines  a  doctrine  regarding  faith  and 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


543 


morals,”  he  is  possessed  of  infallibility.  How  is  the  dogmatic 
decree  to  be  interpreted?  Of  course,  it  says  nothing  as  to  the 
personal  character  of  pontiff's.  It  may  be  good  or  bad.  It  does 
not  ascribe  inerrancy  to  the  Pope  in  ordinary  conversation  on 
theology  and  ethics,  or  to  letters  or  other  writings  not  addressed 
by  him  to  the  entire  Church  with  the  explicit  intention  to  define 
belief,  and  belief  within  this  restricted  circle  of  topics.  But  the 
interpretation  of  the  Vatican  decree,  even  by  authorities  in  the 
ultramontane  party,  limits  the  papal  prerogative  in  a  degree  quite 
unexpected,  not  to  say  logically  untenable.  One  of  these  ex¬ 
positors  of  the  dogma  is  Fessler,  who  was  Secretary  of  the  Council. 
In  his  book,  in  reply  to  Dr.  Schultz,  a  canonist  of  Prague,  a  leader 
in  the  Old  Catholic  party,  Fessler  affirms  that  what  popes  have 
thought,  said,  done,  or  ordained  is  not  pertinent  to  the  question 
as  to  Catholic  dogmas,  but  only  what  they  have  decided  ex  cathedra 
to  be  Catholic  doctrine  in  faith  and  morals ;  that  things  done  by 
popes  are  not  papal  declarations  ex  cathedra  ;  that  the  same  is  true 
of  their  utterances  in  daily  life,  books,  or  ordinary  correspond¬ 
ence  ;  that  the  same  is  true  of  their  solemn  declarations  made  in 
the  exercise  of  their  jurisdiction  as  lawgivers  in  matters  of  disci¬ 
pline,  and  in  pronouncing  judicial  decisions  and  sentences  ;  that  re¬ 
marks  accompanying  a  really  dogmatic  declaration  which  is  made 
ex  cathedra  are  not  a  part  of  the  declaration  itself,  and  are  not 
infallible.  Applying  these  criteria,  Fessler  asserts  that  affirmations 
of  popes  in  connection  with  the  condemnation  of  books,  declara¬ 
tions  of  Leo  X.  in  the  bull  excommunicating  Luther,  etc.,  do  not 
fall  under  the  head  of  dogmatic  decisions.  Still  more  sweeping 
is  the  exclusion  from  this  category  of  papal  declarations  relating 
to  the  “  state,  to  countries,  peoples,  and  individuals.”  Only  one 
sentence  in  the  bull,  unam  sanctam ,  is  conceded  to  be  ex  cathedra. 
We  are  assured  by  Fessler  that  it  is  not  conceded  by  Catholic 
theologians  that  all  the  sentences  in  the  Syllabus  of  Pius  IX.,  which 
are  drawn  from  previous  documents,  are,  according  to  the  decree 
of  the  Vatican  Council,  spoken  ex  cathedra.  He  avers  that  no 
one  is  guilty  of  such  theological  folly  ( Unsinn )  as  to  put  a  papal 
declaration  on  a  level  with  the  Gospel.  That  the  Pope’s  “  infalli¬ 
ble  decisions  ex  cathedra  are  inspired  of  God  was  neither  asserted 
by  the  Vatican  Council,  nor  ever  taught  in  the  Catholic  Church.” 
It  is  not  by  this  method  that  the  Church  is  saved  from  being 
misled  by  erroneous  teaching  emanating  from  its  chief  pastor. 


544 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


It  was  unavoidable  that  the  Vatican  decree  should  be  consid¬ 
ered  by  many  to  imperil  the  foundations  of  civil  authority.  Glad¬ 
stone  maintained  this,  first  in  an  article  in  The  Contemporary  Re- 
view}  and  then  in  a  distinct  publication,  The  Vatican  Decrees  in 
their  Bearing  on  Civil  Allegiance.  Manning  made  answer,  and 
Newman,  also,  wrote  on  the  same  side.  Gladstone  dwelt  on  the 
all-pervading  presence  of  the  obligation  of  duty  in  human  conduct. 
He  quoted  Manning’s  language  that  the  “  spiritual  power  ”  in  mat¬ 
ters  of  religion  and  conscience,  is  supreme,  and  the  proposition 
that  this  power  “  alone  can  fix  the  limits  of  its  own  jurisdiction, 
and  can  thereby  fix  the  limits  of  all  other  jurisdictions.”  That 
is  to  say,  the  Pope  alone  is  authorized  to  decide  what  are  the 
bounds  within  which  the  province  of  the  State  is  confined,  and 
when  they  are  transgressed. 

During  the  sessions  of  the  Council,  Dollinger,  whom  Gladstone 
pronounced  “  the  most  famous  and  learned  theologian  of  the 
Roman  Communion,”  wrote  that  not  only  must  an  article  of  faith 
be  unanimously  approved  by  the  bishops  united  with  the  Pope, 
but  that  the  cecumenicity  of  their  acts  must  be  acknowledged  and 
ratified  by  the  whole  church.  Dollinger  and  Friedrich,  at  the 
head  of  forty-two  Munich  professors,  publicly  protested  against 
the  Vatican  decree.  This  began  the  Old  Catholic  movement, 
which  spread  elsewhere  in  Germany,  in  Switzerland,  and  to  some 
extent  in  other  places.  In  the  assemblies  of  these  dissentients, 
Dollinger  was  not  willing  to  unite  in  the  creation  of  the  separate 
organization  which  was  formed  by  them.  He  adhered  to  his 
denial  of  the  binding  force  of  the  Vatican  decrees,  and  was  at 
length  excommunicated.  The  Old  Catholic  organization  intro¬ 
duced  several  reforms,  such  as  the  giving  of  the  cup  to  the  laity, 
the  abolition  of  the  law  of  celibacy,  the  use  of  the  vernacular  in 
the  service  of  worship.  Dollinger  presided  over  two  Old  Cath¬ 
olic  conferences,  which  included  several  members  from  Russia, 
France,  and  England,  for  the  promotion  of  Christian  union  among 
the  hierarchical  churches  opposed  to  papal  usurpations.  At  the 
first  of  these  meetings,  held  at  Bonn  in  1874,  fourteen  doctrinal 
articles  were  agreed  upon.  At  the  second,  held  also  at  Bonn,  the 
next  year,  there  was  an  agreement  upon  six  articles  relating  to  the 
doctrine  of  the  Procession  of  the  Spirit,  and  to  the  controversy  on 
this  subject  between  the  Eastern  and  Western  churches. 

1  October,  1874. 


CHAPTER  X 


CONCLUSION  :  CERTAIN  THEOLOGICAL  TENDENCIES  IN  RECENT  TIMES 

The  design  of  these  remarks  is  to  advert  to  certain  drifts  in 
theology  which  are  specially  observable  in  the  last  few  decades. 
In  contrast  with  what  was  customary  in  the  last  century,  we  find 
that  emphasis  is  laid  upon  the  immanence  of  God.  Thus  there  is 
recognized  in  Pantheism  a  half-truth  which,  in  the  combat  for 
the  transcendence  of  the  divine  Being,  in  former  days,  was  often 
overlooked.  A  measure  of  reasonableness,  moreover,  is  conceded 
to  the  Mysticism  which,  in  past  ages,  in  varied  forms,  has  made 
much  of  the  inward,  living  presence  of  God  in  the  devout  soul. 
The  Deistic  habit  of  thought  which  characterized  not  only  the 
champions  of  Deism,  but,  also,  their  orthodox  opponents,  has  been 
supplanted  by  a  deeper  conception  of  the  relation  of  God  to  the 
Creation.  Accordingly,  in  Apologetics,  the  Evidential  theology  of 
the  last  century,  which  gave  the  precedence  to  miracles  and  to  the 
proofs  of  them  through  testimony,  has  given  way  to  a  method  which 
attributes  a  higher  probative  value  to  the  internal,  spiritual  charac¬ 
teristics  of  the  Christian  Revelation. 

The  trend  towards  a  materialistic  Pantheism  which  was  often 
connected  with  the  first  proclamation  of  the  law  of  physical  evolu¬ 
tion  is  far  less  perceptible.  Further  reflection  tends  to  convince 
the  ablest  naturalists  of  the  defects  of  such  a  theory  of  the  universe. 
It  is  more  and  more  clear  that  the  moral  history  of  mankind 
cannot  be  resolved  into  a  natural  history.  In  one  of  Professor 
Huxley’s  lay  sermons,1  the  relation  of  man  to  the  laws  of  nature, 
including  men  and  their  ways,  is  likened  to  a  game  with  an  unseen 
Power,  conceived  of  as  inflexible,  but  righteous,  —  a  calm,  strong 
angel,  who  is  playing  for  love,  “  and  would  rather  lose  than  win.” 
Entering  thus  into  the  illustration  are  elements  at  variance  with 

1  Lay  Sermons ,  Addresses,  etc.  (1871),  p.  31. 

2N  545 


546 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


the  agnostic  philosophy.  More  significant  still  is  the  general 
tenor  of  one  of  the  latest  productions  of  the  same  author,  the 
Romanes  Lecture.  The  moral  task  of  man  is  depicted  as  in 
direct  conflict  with  the  “  cosmic  process.”  “The  practice  of  what 
is  ethically  best,”  we  are  assured,  —  what  we  call  goodness  or 
virtue,  —  “  involves  a  course  of  conduct  which,  in  all  respects,  is 
opposed  to  that  which  leads  to  success  in  the  cosmic  struggle 
for  existence.”  “The  ethical  progress  of  society  depends,  not  on 
imitating  the  cosmic  process,  still  less  in  running  away  from  it, 
but  in  combating  it.” 1  It  is  true  that  here  and  there  in  this 
lecture,  and  more  distinctly  in  the  added  “Prolegomena,”  this 
ethical  resistance  is  itself  made  a  part  of  the  “cosmic  process” 
regarded  as  a  whole.  But  the  progress  of  the  author’s  mind  is 
obviously  towards  the  perception  of  the  free  and  responsible  ele¬ 
ment  that  enters  into  man’s  constitution,  account  for  its  genesis 
as  we  may.  Even  the  gloomy,  pessimistic  outlook  upon  the 
future  of  the  world  is  so  far  brightened  that  the  author  says  : 
“I  see  no  limit  to  the  extent  to  which  intelligence  and  will,  guided 
by  sound  principles  of  investigation,  and  organized  in  common 
effort,  may  modify  the  conditions  of  existence,  for  a  period  longer 
than  that  now  covered  by  history.  And  much  may  be  done  to 
change  the  nature  of  man  himself.”2  It  is  admitted  to  be  “an 
apparent  paradox,”  “  that  ethical  nature,  while  born  of  cosmic 
nature,  is  necessarily  at  enmity  with  its  parent.”3 

An  interesting  instance  of  a  complete  advance  to  a  religious 
and  even  a  distinctly  Christian  view  of  the  world  and  of  man  is 
that  of  George  John  Romanes,  the  gifted  expositor  of  Evolution, 
who  founded  the  lecture  bearing  his  name  —  a  name  which  Hux¬ 
ley  cannot  record  without  “  deploring  his  untimely  death  in  the 
flower  of  his  age.”4  In  A  Candid  Examination  of  Theism,  by 
Physicus ,  which  Romanes  published  in  1876,  he  had  arrived  at 
a  wholly  skeptical  conclusion  as  to  the  being  of  God  and  the 
freedom  of  the  will.  Gradually  this  position  was  abandoned  for 
that  of  Christian  Theism.  He  saw  that  he  had  attached  too  little 
importance  to  the  needs  and  intimations  of  the  human  spirit  —  to 
phenomena  which  it  behooves  a  scientific  man  not  to  overlook. 
He  adopted  as  the  most  reasonable  opinion  the  doctrine  that  all 
causation  is  volitional,  that  there  is  a  teleology  in  nature,  and  that 

1  See  Evolution  and  Ethics  and  Other  Essays  (1894),  pp.  81-83. 

2  Ibid.  p.  85.  3  Ibid.  p.  viii.  4  Ibid.  p.  v. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


547 


the  scientific  objections  to  the  freedom  of  the  will  are  not  valid.1 
“It  is  no  argument,”  he  came  to  think,  “against  the  divine  origin 
of  a  thing,  event,  etc.,  to  prove  it  due  to  natural  causation.” 2  By 
a  path  of  his  own,  an  able  interpreter  of  the  philosophy  of  Spencer 
finds  his  way  to  Theism  and  to  the  truth  of  personal  immortality.3 

The  reaction  against  a  Deistic,  as  distinguished  from  a  Theistic, 
position,  is  manifest  in  the  method  of  dealing  with  the  antithesis 
of  the  natural  and  the  supernatural.  The  idea  that  one  is  the 
antipode  of  the  other  is  no  longer  satisfactory.  There  is  an  impa¬ 
tience  of  duality,  a  search  for  unity,  in  the  plan  of  Providence. 
The  vague  impression  that  redemption  is  somehow  an  afterthought, 
a  remodelling  of  the  scheme  of  the  world  to  meet  an  emergency 
not  at  first  provided  for,  is  dispelled.  There  is  perceived  a  ten¬ 
dency  to  follow  Augustine  and  to  harmonize  the  seemingly  con¬ 
flicting  parts  of  the  system  by  the  doctrine  that  the  natural  is 
supernatural  —  that,  albeit  there  are  two  classes  of  events,  they 
nevertheless  constitute  one  order  of  things.  Hence  theologians 
cast  about  for  a  hypothesis  concerning  the  miracles  of  Scripture 
that  shall  do  away  with  the  idea  that  they  are  anti-natural, 
and  show  that,  in  the  circumstances  in  which  they  occur,  they 
have  their  place  in  the  comprehensive  order.  On  the  subject  of 
the  Atonement,  theology  seeks  for  a  point  of  view  where  all  ap¬ 
pearance  of  arbitrariness  in  the  doctrinal  explanations  of  the  New 
Testament  as  to  the  purport  and  effect  of  the  sufferings  and  death 
of  Christ,  shall  disappear  —  where  the  historic  facts  shall  interpret 
themselves  in  accordance  with  these  explanations. 

Among  Protestants  and  Roman  Catholics  the  old  question  re¬ 
specting  the  seat  of  authority  in  religion  is  once  more  eagerly 
disputed.  Since  Coleridge  and  Schleiermacher  insisted  that  the 
primary  object  of  faith  is  not  the  Bible,  but  Christ,  there  has  been 
a  growing  tendency  to  regard  the  Scriptures  less  as  an  authorita¬ 
tive  manual  of  revealed  tenets  in  theology  and  morals,  than  as  the 
medium  of  disclosing  to  us  the  personal  Christ  and  the  import  of 
His  mission  and  teaching.  The  absolute  inerrancy  of  Scriptural 
statements,  especially  in  the  narrative  portions  of  the  Bible,  is  no 

1  See  Romanes,  Thoughts  on  Religion ,  edited  by  Canon  Gore  (2d  ed.  1895), 
P-  3i- 

2  Ibid.  p.  128. 

3  John  Fiske,  The  Destiny  of  Man  viezued  in  the  Light  of  his  Origin 
(1884);  The  Idea  of  God  as  affected  by  Modern  Knozvledge  (1885). 


548 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


longer  maintained,  in  England  and  America,  by  numerous  theolo¬ 
gians  who  are  firmly  attached  to  the  principal  doctrines  of  the 
Evangelical  system.  An  American  theological  teacher  —  whose 
early  death  was  generally  lamented  —  writes  as  follows,  speaking 
of  American  Congregationalists  : 1  “We  are  coming  more  clearly 
to  understand  the  great  purpose  of  the  Bible ;  namely,  to  bring 
the  Church  and  the  individual  in  all  ages  into  vital  contact  with 
the  historic  facts,  the  divine  truth,  and  the  spiritual  power  of 
Christianity ;  and  so  to  discern  what  is  essential  and  non-essential 
for  the  attainment  of  that  purpose.  We  are  most  of  us  ready  to 
admit  that  false  standards  have  been  set  up,  that  an  infallibility  in 
non-essentials  has  been  demanded  which  the  Bible  never  claims, 
and  which,  if  it  existed,  would  render  it  less  fitted  for  its  end.  We 
are  beginning  to  see  that  we  may  grant  that  the  sacred  writers 
were  not  scientific  historians,  not  philosophers  or  men  of  science, 
not  experts  in  the  methods  of  scientific  exegesis  or  of  literary  criti¬ 
cism,  and  yet  may  rest  firm  in  our  conviction  that  they  were  so 
directed  by  the  supernatural  influence  of  God’s  Spirit  as  to  give 
us  the  perfect  rule  of  faith  and  life.”  The  tendency  of  opinion 
to  which  reference  is  here  made  is  reinforced  at  present  by 
whatever  is  deemed  verifiable  in  the  “  Higher  Criticism.”  In 
Germany,  one  prominent  object  of  investigation  of  late  has  been 
the  “  consciousness  of  Christ,”  and  the  inquiry  has  been  prose¬ 
cuted  by  means  of  a  scrutiny  of  the  Scriptures,  in  which  the 
inerrancy  of  their  several  parts  is  far  from  being  assumed  or 
acknowledged.  At  the  same  time,  Protestant  theologians,  even  of 
the  class  referred  to,  are  frequently  disposed  to  admit  an  authority 
of  the  Church,  in  some  substantial  meaning  of  the  terms.  The 
Christian  experience  of  the  Church  at  large,  the  collective  “  Chris¬ 
tian  consciousness,”  is  considered  a  trustworthy  witness  in  regard 
to  the  substance  of  the  Gospel.2 

1  The  Present  Direction  of  Theological  Thought  in  the  Congregational 
Chtirches  in  the  United  States ,  a  paper  read  before  the  International  Congre¬ 
gational  Council  in  London  (1891),  by  Lewis  F.  Stearns. 

2  Professor  Charles  A.  Briggs,  a  distinguished  scholar  in  the  Presbyterian 
Church,  in  an  Inaugural  Address  (1891),  maintained  that  there  are  “three 
fountains  of  divine  authority1’;  namely,  the  Bible,  the  Reason,  and  the 
Church.  In  subsequent  discussions  he  disavowed  the  intention  to  coordinate 
these.*  He  alleged  in  support  of  his  thesis  the  divine  institution  of  the  Church, 


*  The  Defe7ice  before  the  Presbytery ,  p.  82  seq. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


549 


The  great  antithesis  between  Sacramentalism  —  the  doctrine  of 
the  inherent  efficacy  of  the  Sacraments  —  and  the  opposite  view 
as  to  their  significance  remains.  With  the  exception  of  the  Lu¬ 
theran  Church  in  its  doctrine  of  the  Eucharist,  Sacramentalism 
has  been  connected  with  belief  in  the  continued  priestly  office  of 
the  clergy.  A  new  obstacle  in  the  way  of  the  reunion  of  the 
churches  and  the  portions  of  churches  in  which  Sacramentalism 
is  the  creed  has  been  created  by  the  Vatican  declaration  of  Papal 
infallibility.  Yet  the  attenuated  meaning  attached  to  the  new 
dogma  lessens  the  height  of  the  wall  of  division  among  Sacerdo- 
talists,  and  the  toleration  of  the  theory  of  development,  in  the 
room  of  tradition,  as  the  basis  of  the  Roman  system,  —  an  allow¬ 
ance  implied  in  such  an  act  as  the  raising  of  Newman  to  the 
cardinalate,  —  removes,  in  the  apprehension  of  many,  a  barrier 
that  had  kept  away  from  the  Church  of  Rome  conscientious 
historical  students.1 

The  reduction  of  the  area  of  Calvinism,  and  its  partial  disinte¬ 
gration  in  communities  where  it  had  long  been  established,  is  a 
fact  which  challenges  attention.  If  we  go  back  to  the  dawn  of 
the  seventeenth  century,  we  find  that  the  Reformed  or  Calvinistic 
creed,  to  say  nothing  of  its  prevalence  in  Bohemia,  Hungary,  and 
other  regions  of  less  note,  was  dominant  in  Switzerland,  the  Palat¬ 
inate,  Holland,  the  Protestant  Church  of  France,  of  Scotland,  and 
in  England,  where,  to  the  end  of  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  the  theo¬ 
logical  influence  of  Calvin  was  a  controlling  power.  Arminianism 
inflicted  a  severe  blow  upon  the  dominion  exercised  by  the  Gene¬ 
van  system,  not  only  in  Holland,  but,  more  and  more,  under  the 

the  Ministry,  and  the  Sacraments.  On  the  subject  of  Biblical  Infallibility  he 
said :  “  The  Bible  has  maintained  its  authority  with  the  best  scholars  of  our 
time,  who  with  open  minds  have  been  willing  to  recognize  any  error  that  might 
be  pointed  out  by  historical  criticism;  for  these  errors  are  all  in  the  circum¬ 
stantials  and  not  in  the  essentials;  they  are  in  the  human  setting  and  not  in 
the  precious  jewel  itself;  they  are  found  in  that  section  of  the  Bible  that  theo¬ 
logians  commonly  account  for  from  the  providential  superintendence  of  the 
mind  of  the  author  as  distinguished  from  divine  revelation  itself.”  *  Oppo¬ 
nents  of  this  teaching  of  Professor  Briggs  contended  for  the  infallibility  of  the 
“original  autographs”  of  the  Scriptures. 

1  The  difference  of  the  old  and  the  new  theory  was  appreciated  by 
Dr.  Pusey :  “The  Council  of  Trent  does  not  go,  as  dear  Newman  does,  on 
development,  but  on  tradition.” — Life  of  Pusey ,  Vol.  III.  p.  207. 


*  Inaugural  Address ,  p.  22. 


550 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


Stuarts,  in  England.  In  the  last  century,  among  the  agencies 
which  contributed  still  further  to  diminish  the  sway  of  Calvinism 
in  English-speaking  communities,  the  influence  of  Bishop  Butler, 
through  the  method  of  his  Analogy ,  is  an  important  factor.  In 
that  notable  work,  so  valued  a  defence  of  the  truths  of  religion, 
the  doctrine  of  man’s  probation  has  a  prominent  place.  It  is  not, 
however,  the  Calvinistic  doctrine  of  the  probation  of  the  race,  but 
the  doctrine  of  the  probation  of  the  individual,  each  for  himself, 
on  which  the  author  insists.  In  the  decline  of  interest  in  the  old 
disputes  on  questions  which  Calvinists  had  debated  with  their 
opponents,  in  the  presence  of  issues  more  fundamental,  the  natural 
tendency  of  Butler’s  discussions  had  a  marked  effect  on  the  habit 
of  thought.  The  Wesleyan  movement  induced  a  certain  reaction, 
but  Calvinism  contended  against  great  odds,  owing  to  the  rapid 
growth  and  diffusion  in  America,  as  well  as  England,  of  Wesley’s 
reinforcement  of  an  aggressive  Arminianism.  The  dissatisfaction 
which  has  appeared,  from  time  to  time,  with  one  feature  of  Cal¬ 
vinism,  which  is  denominated  ‘‘limited  atonement,”  the  persist¬ 
ence  of  a  strong  predilection  for  the  opinion  that  the  salvation 
of  the  non-elect  is  an  object  of  sincere  desire  in  the  mind  of  God, 
have  proved,  likewise,  a  disintegrating  force.  It  is  worthy  of  re¬ 
mark  that,  among  Presbyterians  in  the  United  States  and  Great 
Britain,  in  efforts,  in  some  cases  successful,  and  in  some  cases  not, 
to  revise  the  Westminster  Confession,  a  special  aim  has  been  to 
incorporate  in  the  creed,  or  to  annex  to  it,  the  opinion  just 
referred  to.  To  one  who  looks  belowT  the  surface  of  conten¬ 
tions  in  theology,  it  is  pretty  obvious  that  it  is  not  the  doctrine 
of  predestination  —  the  network  of  teleology  in  which  Calvinism 
encloses  the  realms  of  nature  and  Providence  —  that  more  com¬ 
monly  excites  repugnance  to  this  compact  and  logical  system. 
The  theory  of  determinism,  in  a  more  rigid  form  than  any  opinion 
of  the  Genevan  reformer,  is  not  unfrequently  expressed  by  phi¬ 
losophers  who,  on  questions  of  religion,  are  of  the  free-thinking 
class.  The  real,  even  when  unconscious,  motive  of  this  antago¬ 
nism  is  the  objection  felt  to  the  connected  doctrine  relative  to 
the  outcome  of  the  course  of  the  world  —  to  the  Calvinistic 
eschatology.  It  cannot  be  denied  that,  whether  justly  or  unjustly, 
to  a  multitude  of  minds,  in  modern  days,  the  system  of  Calvinism 
wears  an  aspect  of  cruelty.  The  source  of  this  impression,  how¬ 
ever,  is  not  so  much  any  dogma  pertaining  to  divine  and  human 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


551 


agency,  as  the  tenet  as  to  the  actual  issues  of  the  divine  govern¬ 
ment  and  of  the  drama  of  human  life.  In  a  survey  of  the  theo¬ 
logical  tendencies  of  the  present  day,  one  general  cause  of  the 
decadence  of  Calvinism  is  entitled  to  a  more  particular  con¬ 
sideration,  and  will  now  be  adverted  to. 

It  is  plain  to  keen  observers  that,  in  the  later  days,  both  within 
and  without  what  may  be  called  the  pale  of  Calvinism,  there 
is  a  certain  relaxing  of  confidence  in  the  previously  accepted 
solutions  of  some  of  the  gravest  theological  problems.  This 
appears  among  many  whose  attachment  to  the  core  of  the  essen¬ 
tial  truths  formulated  in  the  past  does  not  wane,  whose  substantial 
orthodoxy,  as  well  as  piety,  is  not  often,  if  it  be  at  all,  questioned, 
and  who  have  no  sympathy  with  agnosticism,  in  the  technical  sense 
of  the  word.  The  fact  is  here  stated,  with  no  purpose  either  to 
applaud  or  to  censure.  It  is  in  part  an  incidental  effect  of  the 
exegetical  method  and  spirit  in  which  history,  as  well  as  philology, 
is  applied,  in  a  manner  somewhat  new,  to  the  interpretation  of  the 
Bible.  The  exegesis  of  the  past  is  felt  to  be  in  need  of  a  revisal 
from  fresh  points  of  view  and  of  a  larger  infusion  of  literary  tact. 
The  reduced  confidence  in  traditional  solutions  is  partly  owing  to 
a  sense  of  the  need  of  a  sharper  distinction  between  the  funda¬ 
mental  truths  of  the  Gospel  and  the  philosophy  which  has  been 
employed  in  the  formulating  of  them.  This  motive  may  prompt, 
as  is  the  case  with  a  section  of  the  Ritschlian  School  in  Germany, 
to  an  unduly  agnostic  position  respecting  the  objective  reality  of 
the  truths  themselves,  and  to  the  abjuring  of  philosophy  altogether. 
But  such  is  not  the  state  of  mind  in  the  class  of  orthodox  teachers 
of  religion  who  are  here  referred  to.  Even  by  them  the  formulas 
respecting  the  precise  connection  of  divine  agency  with  human 
agency,  in  the  composition  of  the  Scriptures,  and  in  regenera¬ 
tion  and  sanctification,  the  theodicy  as  concerned  with  the  intro¬ 
duction  and  perpetuation  of  evil,  the  process  of  the  Incarnation, 
the  mode  in  which  the  Saviour’s  death  affects  the  mind  of  God 
and  lays  a  basis  for  the  proclamation  of  forgiveness,  the  ultimate 
destiny  of  the  impenitent  and  non-Christian  portion  of  mankind, 
—  the  formulas  on  these  themes  are  looked  upon  with  at  least  a 
modicum  of  distrust.  A  larger  space  is  remanded  to  the  region 
of  mystery.  There  is  a  tendency  to  enlarge  the  domain  of  the 
unrevealed. 

The  purport  of  the  foregoing  statements  may  be  better  under- 


552 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


stood  by  particular  reference  to  two  English  theological  writers, 
each  of  acknowledged  worth  and  eminence,  and  each  a  revered 
leader  in  his  own  communion. 

The  first  of  these  writers  is  the  late  Dean  Church,  who  was 
affiliated  with  the  Oxford  Movement  and  has  best  recorded  its 
history.  The  extracts  which  follow  are  from  letters  in  reply  to 
correspondents  who  brought  before  him  their  difficulties  in  relation 
to  eternal  punishment,  the  limitation  of  the  knowledge  of  the 
incarnate  Christ,  the  Atonement.  They  touch  incidentally  on  the 
principles  of  Biblical  interpretation.1 

“  Whatever  one  says  of  the  millions  of  publicans  and  sinners, 
or  the  ‘  sixscore  thousand  persons  that  cannot  discern  between 
their  right  hand  and  their  left,’  must  rest  on  other  premises. 
There,  it  seems  to  me  that  we  are  between  the  certainties  of 
God’s  justice,  mercy,  and  love,  on  the  one  hand ;  and  on  the 
other,  our  own  absolute  and  hopeless  ignorance  as  to  how  He 
deals,  and  will  deal,  with  these  millions,  both  in  and  out  of  Chris¬ 
tendom,  as  to  whom  the  first  difficulty  that  presents  itself  is,  — 
why  they  were  born  for  such  inevitable  lives,  and,  apparently, 
certain  moral  failure.  I  say  apparently,  because  none  but  He 
who  knows,  in  each  concrete  case,  the  light  given,  and  the  real 
movements  of  the  will,  can  know  what  the  failure  really  is. 
Scripture,  which  tells  us  the  doom  not  only  of  deliberate  sin,  but 
of  sinful  trifling  and  carelessness  in  those  who  know,  or  might 
have  known,  is  silent  about  these  masses  of  mankind,  who,  so  far 
as  we  can  see,  are  without  what  we  have.” 

vl/  sir  vl»  vL»  vis  Os 

7F  -3F  7F  7T  7F  7F 

“  The  common  topic  against  eternal  punishment,  ‘  Could  any 
man  of  ordinary  feeling  appoint  it?  and  if  not,  how  could  God?’ 
is  quite  as  strong  about  evil.  How  can  we  imagine  ourselves,  sup¬ 
posing  we  had  omnipotence  or  omniscience,  enduring  to  bring 
into  being  such  unintermitting  masses  of  misery  and  sin?  The 
difficulty  of  finally  dealing  with  evil  is  to  me  a  far  less  difficulty 
than  that  of  evil  itself.  The  ordinary  language  about  eternal 
punishment  seems  to  me  simply  to  forget  the  fact  of  the  equal 
difficulty  of  evil.  Two  difficulties  do  not  make  one  solution ; 
but  at  least  they  ought  to  teach  patience  and  guarded  lan¬ 
guage. 

1  Life  and  Letters  of  Dean  Church  (1894),  pp.  315,  318,  319,  328. 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


553 


“  On  the  other  hand,  Scripture,  though  awfully  plain-spoken 
and  stern,  seems  to  me  very  general  in  its  language  on  this 
matter.” 

/T'  'f'  ^  V[\  v[\ 

“  I  have  no  doubt  that  we  have  not  yet  reached  the  true  and 
complete  method  of  Scripture  exegesis,  and  that  a  great  deal 
remains  to  be  done  by  sober  and  reverential  inquiry,  in  dis¬ 
tinguishing  between  its  definite  and  precise  language  (‘the  Word 
was  God  ’)  and  its  vague  or  incidental  or  unqualified  language 
(‘  hate  his  father  and  mother/  ‘  shall  not  come  out  till  he  has 
paid  the  uttermost  farthing’).  But  I  shrink  much  from  specu¬ 
lating  on  the  human  knowledge  of  our  blessed  Lord,  or  the  limita¬ 
tions  —  and  they  may  have  been  great  —  which  He  was  pleased 
to  impose  on  Himself,  when  he  ‘  emptied  Himself,’  and  became 
as  one  of  us.  I  have  never  been  satisfied  with  the  ordinary  expla¬ 
nations  of  the  text  you  quote,  St.  Matt.  xxiv.  36.  They  seem 
simply  to  explain  it  away  as  much  as  any  Unitarian  gloss  of  St. 
John  i.  1.  To  me  it  means  that  He  who  was  to  judge  the  world, 
who  knew  what  was  in  man,  and,  more,  who  alone  knew  the 
Father,  was  at  that  time  content  to  have  that  hour  hidden  from 
Him  —  did  not  choose  to  be  above  the  angels  in  knowing  it  —  as 
He  was  afterwards  content  to  be  forsaken  of  the  Father.  But  the 
whole  is  perfectly  inconceivable  to  my  mind,  and  I  could  not  base 
any  general  theory  of  His  knowledge  on  it.  I  think  it  is  very 
likely  that  we  do  not  understand  the  meaning  of  much  that  is 
said  in  Scripture ;  —  its  sense,  and  the  end  and  purport  for  which 
at  the  time  it  was  said.  But  it  would  perplex  me  much  to  think 
that  He  was  imperfect  or  ignorant  in  what  He  did  say,  whether 
we  understood  Him  or  not.” 

■5fc  •%:  ^  ^  ^  ^ 

“  As  far  as  I  understand  the  difficulty  it  is  this :  How  could  our 
Lord  really  have  sympathized  in  all  human  pain,  when  He  could 
not,  by  supposition,  have  known  that  which  gives  it  its  worst  sting, 
—  its  apparent  uselessness  and  its  helplessness  ?  Well,  I  can  only 
say  that  I  cannot  form  the  faintest  conception  how,  in  the  actual 
depths  of  that  Divine  suffering  nature,  all  human  pain  was  borne, 
and  shared,  and  understood.  I  can  only  see  it  from  the  outside. 
I  see  the  suffering ;  I  am  told,  on  His  authority,  what  it  means 
and  involves.  I  can,  if  I  like,  and  as  has  often  been  done,  go  on 
and  make  a  theory  how  He  bore  our  sins,  and  how  He  gained 


554 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


their  forgiveness,  and  how  He  took  away  the  sins  of  the  world. 
But  I  own  that  the  longer  I  live  the  more  my  mind  recoils  from 
such  efforts.  It  seems  to  me  so  idle,  so,  in  the  very  nature  of  our 
condition,  hopeless,  just  in  proportion  as  one  seems  to  grasp  more 
really  the  true  nature  of  all  that  went  on  beyond  the  visible  sight 
of  the  Cross,  all  that  was  in  Him  who  was  God  and  man,  whose 
capacities  and  inner  life  human  experience  cannot  reach  or  reflect. 
But  one  of  the  thoughts  which  pass  sometimes  through  our  minds 
about  the  sufferings  of  the  Cross,  is,  what  could  be  the  necessity 
of  such  suffering?  What  was  the  use  of  it?  How,  with  infinite 
power,  could  not  its  ends  have  been  otherwise  attained?  Why 
need  He  have  suffered?  Why  could  not  the  Father  save  Him 
from  that  hour?  Did  that  thought,  in  the  limitations  and  ‘empty¬ 
ing  ’  (Phil.  ii.  7)  of  the  Passion,  pass  through  His  mind  too  ? 

“  But  I  suppose  that,  after  all,  the  real  difficulty  is  not  about 
Him,  but  ourselves.  Why  pain  at  all  ?  I  can  only  say  that  the 
very  attempt  to  give  an  answer,  that  the  very  thought  of  an  answer 
by  us  being  conceivable,  seems  to  me  one  which  a  reasonable 
being  in  our  circumstances  ought  not  to  entertain.  It  seems  to 
me  one  of  those  questions  which  can  only  be  expressed  by  such  a 
figure  as  a  fly  trying  to  get  through  a  glass  window,  or  a  human 
being  jumping  into  space  ;  that  is,  it  is  almost  impossible  to  express 
the  futility  of  it.  It  is  obvious  that  it  is  part  of  a  wider  subject, 
that  it  could  not  be  answered  by  itself,  that  we  should  need  to 
know  a  great  many  other  things  to  have  the  power  of  answering. 
And  what  is  the  use  of  asking  what  we  cannot  know  ?  .  .  .  The 
facts  which  witness  to  the  goodness  and  the  love  of  God  are  clear 
and  undeniable  ;  they  are  not  got  rid  of  by  the  presence  and  cer¬ 
tainty  of  other  facts,  which  seem  of  an  opposite  kind ;  only  the 
coexistence  of  the  two  contraries  is  perplexing.  And  then  comes 
the  question,  which  shall  have  the  decisive,  governing  influence  on 
wills  and  lives  ?  You  must,  by  the  necessity  of  your  existence, 
trust  one  set  of  appearances ;  which  will  you  trust  ?  Our  Lord 
came  among  us  not  to  clear  up  the  perplexity,  but  to  show  us 
which  side  to  take.” 

The  second  of  the  writers  is  the  late  Dr.  R.  W.  Dale,  the  re¬ 
spect  for  whom  among  the  Congregationalists  of  England,  among 
whom  he  was  an  honored  leader,  was  shared  by  men  of  the 
highest  worth  in  the  Established  Church,  and  by  fellow-Christians 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


555 


of  his  own  communion  in  America.  The  following  extracts  are 
from  the  discourse  of  Dr.  Dale  on  the  “  Evangelical  Revival  ”  of 
the  last  century.1 

“  When  the  Reformers  undertook  the  task  of  constructing  a 
theology  for  the  Reformed  Churches,  the  intellectual  revolution 
which  began  with  the  Renaissance  was  incomplete  —  it  is  not 
complete  yet  —  and  while  they  made  immense  and  salutary 
changes  in  the  dogmas  of  the  Church  by  a  constant  appeal  to  the 
authority  of  the  Holy  Scripture,  their  method  was  still  powerfully 
influenced  by  the  decaying  Scholasticism.  There  were  other  causes 
which  gave  to  their  work  a  provisional  character.  Indeed  all  work 
of  this  kind  is  necessarily  but  for  a  time ;  it  has  to  be  done  over 
again  whenever  any  great  changes  have  taken  place  in  the  intel¬ 
lectual  condition  of  Christendom.  Such  changes  have  plainly 
been  going  on  very  rapidly  during  the  last  three  hundred  years. 
It  looks  as  if  we  had  almost  escaped  from  the  philosophical 
methods  which  still  retained  much  of  their  authority  in  the  time 
of  the  Reformers.  If  the  intellectual  revolution  is  approaching 
its  term,  the  process  of  reconstructing  our  theological  systems  will 
soon  have  to  be  gone  through  again.  .  .  .  Among  Evangelical 
Nonconformists  the  severe  and  rigid  lines  of  Calvinism  have  been 
gradually  relaxed.  Mr.  Spurgeon  stands  alone  among  the  modern 
leaders  of  Evangelical  Nonconformists  in  his  fidelity  to  the  older 
Calvinistic  creed. 

“The  decay  of  Calvinism  among  Evangelical  Nonconformists 
has  been  largely  due  to  the  influence  of  Methodism.  .  .  .  But 
other  influences  have  been  acting  on  the  traditional  creed  of  our 
churches.  .  .  . 

“  That  general  movement  of  European  thought  of  which  I  have 
spoken  is  rendering  it  impossible  to  retain  theological  theories 
which  were  constructed  in  the  sixteenth  century.  Men  whose 
whole  life  is  rooted  in  Christ,  to  whom  He  is  the  Eternal  Word  of 
God,  ‘  the  brightness  of  the  Father’s  glory,  and  the  express  image 
of  His  person,’  4  the  propitiation  for  the  sin  of  the  world,’  the 
Prince,  the  Saviour,  and  the  Judge  of  men,  are  conscious  that  the 
rivets  which  fastened  their  doctrinal  definitions  are  loosening  — 
they  hardly  know  how  or  why ;  that  their  theological  theories,  as 
distinct  from  their  religious  faith,  are  dissolving  and  melting  away. 

1  The  Evangelical  Revival  and  Other  Sermons  (18S0),  pp.  19,  21-25. 


556 


HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


While  not  relaxing  their  hold  on  the  Divine  revelation  which  has 
come  to  them  through  Christ,  they  are  asking  for  some  more  satis¬ 
factory  intellectual  account  of  the  great  facts  and  truths  which  are 
their  joy  and  strength.  There  is  hardly  a  theological  definition 
which  they  can  accept  without  qualification;  there  is  hardly  a 
theological  phrase  which  is  not  colored  by  speculations  which 
seem  to  them  incredible.  They  have  not  lost  sight  of  sun  and 
stars  ;  they  will  tell  you  that  with  their  increasing  years  the  glory 
of  the  sun  is  brighter  to  them  than  ever,  and  that  the  stars  are 
more  mysterious  and  divine;  but  they  want  a  new  astronomical 
theory.  The  sun  and  stars  are  God’s  handiwork ;  astronomi¬ 
cal  theories  are  the  provisional  human  explanations  of  Divine 
wonders.” 

******* 

“  The  work  of  theological  reconstruction  must  be  done.  It  can 
only  be  done  effectively  when  the  religious  faith  and  ardor  of  the 
Church  are  intense,  and  when  robust  genius  and  massive  learning 
are  united  with  saintly  devotion.  A  theology  which  is  the  creation 
of  a  poor  and  degraded  religious  life  will  have  neither  stability  nor 
grandeur.  We  must  all  become  better  Christians  before  we  can 
hope  to  see  great  theologians. 

“Meanwhile  —  and  this,  perhaps,  is  the  lesson  of  the  hour  — 
all  Evangelical  Churches  should  frankly  recognize  that  the  Evan¬ 
gelical  theology  —  not  the  Evangelical  faith  —  is  passing  through 
a  period  of  transition.  We  should  not  rigorously  insist  on  the 
acceptance  either  of  the  subordinate  details  of  our  creed  or  of  the 
scientific  forms  in  which  we  are  accustomed  to  state  even  its  regal 
and  central  articles.  It  would  be  treason  to  truth  to  trifle  with 
the  immortal  substance  of  the  gospel  of  Christ ;  it  would  be 
treason  to  charity  to  refuse  to  receive  as  brethren  those  who  may 
differ  from  us  about  the  theological  forms  in  which  the  substance 
of  the  Gospel  may  be  best  expressed.” 

Since  the  Reformation,  in  contrast  with  the  more  distinctively 
ecclesiastical  ages  preceding,  the  ethical  side  of  the  Gospel  has 
been  more  and  more  brought  into  the  foreground.  The  relation 
of  Christianity  to  political  and  social  reform,  to  philanthropy  in 
all  directions,  engages  attention.  Allied  to  this  spirit  is  the  more 
absorbing  interest  in  the  Life  of  Jesus,  which  gives  rise  to  numerous 
special  works  of  biography,  in  different  languages.  Theology  con¬ 
centrates  its  inquiries  upon  Christ  with  a  greater  subordination  of 


MODERN  THEOLOGY 


557 


all  other  topics.  It  appears  to  be  felt  that  the  outcome,  the  ripe 
fruit,  of  the  Old  Testament  dispensation  is  to  be  found  in  the 
Woman  and  the  Child  in  the  manger  at  Bethlehem.  The  upper¬ 
most  question  is,  What  think  ye  of  Christ?  This  question,  and 
the  implications  of  His  person  and  work,  form  the  rubrics  of  the 
theological  system. 


. 

. 


* 


* 


' 


INDEX 


Abbott,  E.  A.,  452,  459,  463. 

Abelard,  Peter,  his  characteristics,  221 ; 
his  confidence  in  reason,  222;  on  in¬ 
spiration,  ib. ;  on  original  sin,  ib. ;  on 
the  atonement,  223  ;  on  the  Trinity,  ib. ; 
accused  and  condemned,  ib. ;  his  ser¬ 
vice  to  theology,  224. 

Absolution,  258,280,330,331,466.  See 
“  Penance.” 

Adam’s  sin,  doctrine  of.  See  “  Original 
Sin.” 

Adiaphoristic  controversies,  the,  295. 

Adoption  controversy,  the,  205. 

TEthiopic  Church,  the  rise  of,  156. 

Aitius  of  Antioch,  142. 

Agape,  the,  in  the  early  Church,  46,  168. 

Agatho,  Bishop  of  Rome,  159. 

Agnosticism,  a  certain  species  of  in  Sir 
W.  Hamilton,  484;  also  in  Mansel, 
485  ;  in  Spencer,  487  ;  in  Huxley,  489. 
See  “Agnostics.” 

Agnostics,  on  the  possibility  of  theology, 
4- 

Agobard,  Bishop  of  Lyons,  203. 

Agricola,  John,  294. 

Aix,  Synod  of,  205. 

Albert  the  Great,  231,  257,  259. 

Albigenses,  263. 

Alcuin,  203,  205. 

Alexander  VII.,  Pope,  335. 

Alexander,  Bishop  of  Alexandria,  135. 

Alexander  of  Hales,  influence  of  Aris¬ 
totle  on,  216,  229 ;  on  divine  and  hu¬ 
man  agency,  249 ;  his  idea  of  a  treas¬ 
ury  of  merits,  250,  259 ;  on  the  pre¬ 
requisite  for  absolution,  260. 

Alexandria,  theological  school  at,  39,  94, 
127;  151 1  synods  at,  135,  150,  152. 

Allegorical  interpretation,  in  Palestinian 
and  Alexandrian  Judaism,  26,  27; 
among  the  Gnostics,  54 ;  among  the 
Apostolic  Fathers  generally,  76  ;  Clem¬ 
ent  of  Alexandria  on,  94 ;  in  Origen, 
105;  in  Methodius,  116;  in  Bernard 
of  Clairvaux,  224  ;  in  Cocceius,  349. 

Alogi,  the,  100. 


Amalric  of  Bena,  213. 

Ambrose,  Archbishop  of  Milan,  his  writ¬ 
ings,  132;  his  influence  on  Augustine, 
177,  I79.  187  ;  on  original  sin,  187. 

Ames,  William,  348. 

Ammonius  Saccas,  31,  40. 

Amsdorf,  295,  296. 

Amyraut  (Amyraldus) ,  his  theology,  342, 

345- 

Anabaptists,  their  rise,  and  tenets,  318; 
in  Switzerland,  319  ;  their  spread,  ib. 

Ancyra,  Synod  of,  142. 

Andover  theologians  on  continued  pro¬ 
bation,  444. 

Andreas,  296. 

Andreas,  Bishop  of  Samosata,  153. 

Andrews,  Lancelot,  Bishop,  his  theology, 

355- 

Angels,  the  doctrine  of,  in  Philo,  28 ;  in 
the  Gnostic  systems,  56;  in  Justin 
Martyr,  65  note ;  in  Pseudo-Dionysius, 
173 ;  the  worship  of,  124,  172,  198. 

“  Anglo-Catholic  ”  party  and  theology, 
rise  of,  353  sq.,  35 7 ;  revived  in  the 
Oxford  movement,  455  sq. 

Annihilation  of  the  wicked,  doctrine  of 
the,  88,  444,  479,  516.  See  “Future 
State,”  “  Immortality.” 

Anomceans,  142,  143. 

Anselm,  on  the  relation  of  faith  and 
knowledge,  6,  213,  216;  realism  and 
creationism  conjoined  in,  187;  on  the 
Lord’s  Supper,  21 1 ;  the  father  of  Scho¬ 
lasticism,  216 ;  his  writings,  217  ;  on  the 
proofs  of  the  being  of  God,  ib. ;  on 
original  sin,  ib.  sq.  ;  his  doctrine  of  sin 
compared  with  that  of  Augustine,  218  ; 
his  doctrine  of  the  atonement,  219 ; 
this  compared  with  that  of  Aquinas, 
245,  246. 

Antioch,  school  of,  its  spirit  and  teach¬ 
ing,  122,  127,  15 1 ;  synods  of,  104,  115, 
140,  142. 

Antiochian  symbols,  140,  141. 

Apocalypses,  Jewish,  influence  on  early 
Christian  thought,  271. 


5  6° 


INDEX 


Apocalyptic  element  in  the  N.  T.  con¬ 
ception  of  the  kingdom,  24. 

Apocrypha,  use  of  the  term  by  the 
Fathers,.  121  sq. ;  in  the  Creed  of 
Trent,  328. 

Apollinaris,  and  the  Apollinarian  doc¬ 
trine,  148  sq. 

Apologists,  Greek,  their  conception  of 
Christianity  and  of  its  proofs,  61,  62. 
See  under  the  several  names. 

Apostles’  Creed,  its  origin,  70;  its  oldest 
form,  71 ;  its  relation  to  the  regulce 
fidei,  ib. ;  in  the  Western  church,  206; 
incorporated  in  the  Protestant  creeds, 
283. 

Apostolic  succession,  in  Clement  of 
Rome,  76, 79  ;  in  Ireneeus,  79  ;  Whately 
on,  450  ;  Thomas  Arnold  on,  451 ;  the 
Oxford  Declaration  on,  454  ;  Newman’s 
contention  for,  455 ;  Canon  Gore  on, 
468.  See  “  Episcopacy,”  “  Orders.” 

Aquinas,  Thomas,  on  the  relation  of  faith 
and  knowledge,  7,  231 ;  his  philo¬ 
sophical  position,  231 ;  his  writings,  ib. ; 
on  the  necessity  of  revelation,  234 ; 
on  two  classes  of  truths,  ib. ;  on  mira¬ 
cles,  235;  on  inspiration,  ib. ;  on  the 
being  of  God,  and  the  proofs  of  it,  ib. ; 
on  the  extent  of  our  knowledge  of 
God,  236;  on  the  divine  attributes,  ib. ; 
on  the  Trinity,  237 ;  on  the  incarna¬ 
tion,  ib. ;  on  creation,  ib.,  238;  on  di¬ 
vine  and  human  agency  in  conversion, 
238,  248 ;  on  the  theodicy  and  the 
nature  of  evil,  239;  on  the  nature  of 
man,  239 ;  on  immortality,  ib. ;  on  the 
connection  of  the  race  with  Adam,  240, 
242  sq.  ;  on  the  atonement,  245  sq.  ;  on 
the  will,  248;  on  justification,  249;  on 
two  classes  of  virtues,  250 ;  on  papal 
infallibility  and  prerogatives,  252 ;  on 
the  nature,  need,  and  function  of  the 
sacraments,  254  sq. ;  on  the  effect  of 
baptism,  256 ;  on  confirmation,  257 ; 
on  the  Lord’s  Supper  (the  doctrine  of 
concomitance) ,  257  ;  on  transubstanti- 
ation,  ib.  ;  on  confession,  259 ;  on  the 
doctrine  of  supererogatory  merits,  z'A; 
on  purgatory,  ib.  ;  on  extreme  unction, 
260  ;  on  ordination,  261 ;  on  marriage, 
ib.  ;  his  relation  to  Augustine,  262. 

Arianism,  rise  of,  134^7.;  in  England, 
370 sq.;  in  New  England,  418  sq.  See 
“Trinity.” 

Aristides  (the  Apologist),  36. 


Aristotle,  his  influence  on  the  course  of 
doctrine,  after  the  fourth  century,  126 ; 
among  the  Schoolmen,  209,  213,  214, 
216,  229,  231,  262. 

Arius,  his  doctrine,  134  sq.,  144 ;  the 
Thalia  of,  135 ;  his  banishment  and 
recall,  139,  140.  See  “Arianism.” 

Arles,  Synod  of  (A.D.  355),  142. 

Armenian  Church,  the,  as  a  distinct 
body,  156. 

Arminianism,  rise  and  spread  of,  337 ; 
in  the  age  of  the  Puritans,  356;  of 
Wesley  compared  with  the  Dutch, 
392;  in  New  England,  394.  See  “  Ar- 
minians,”  “  Arminius.” 

Arminians,  their  creed,  338 ;  their  sys¬ 
tem  characterized,  339 ;  on  original  sin, 
346;  on  the  atonement  (the  govern¬ 
mental  theory  of  Grotius) ,  340,  341 ;  on 
the  self-origination  of  the  Son,  341 ; 
on  the  person  of  Christ,  342 ;  the  spirit 
of  their  scholars,  ib. 

Arminius,  James,  337. 

Arnauld,  334,  335. 

Arnold,  Matthew,  his  theological  point 
of  view,  480 ;  on  the  being  of  God, 
ib. ;  on  prayer,  482 ;  on  the  substance 
of  Christianity,  ib.;  on  miracles  and 
the  supernatural,  483. 

Arnold,  Thomas,  his  theology,  451,  456. 

Artemon  and  the  Artemonites,  102. 

Assurance,  the  doctrine  of,  impossible 
under  the  Scholastic  system,  250; 
among  the  Reformers,  274;  in  Cal¬ 
vin,  299;  in  the  Creed  of  Trent,  329; 
among  the  Wesleyans,  392. 

Astruc,  497. 

Athanasian  Creed,  the,  147,  206. 

Athanasius,  on  the  orthodoxy  of  Diony¬ 
sius,  114;  conservator  of  unity,  120; 
on  authoritative  Scriptures  and  Apocry¬ 
pha,  121 ;  on  the  hindrance  to  the  per¬ 
ception  of  God,  124;  his  writings,  129  ; 
Gibbon  on,  ib. ;  at  the  Council  of 
Nicaea,  136  sq. ;  the  practical  motive 
underlying  his  doctrine  of  the  Trinity, 
136 ;  on  numerical  unity  of  substance, 
13 7  sq.  ;  repeated  banishments,  140, 
143  ;  on  the  Apollinarian  heresy,  149  ; 
on  the  work  of  Christ,  162 ;  on  the 
Fall,  164. 

Athenagoras,  64,  75. 

Atonement,  doctrine  of  the,  Justin  Mar¬ 
tyr  on,  66 ;  the  Epistle  to  Diognet 
on,  69;  Irenaeus  on,  86;,  Tertullian 


INDEX 


561 


on,  92;  Origen  on,  111;  the  Greek  j 
Fathers  on,  161,  162;  Augustine  on, 
180 ;  Anselm  on,  219,  247 ;  Abelard 
on,  223 ;  Berhard  on,  225 ;  Hugo  of 
St.  Victor  on,  226 ;  Peter  Lombard 
on,  227 ;  Aquinas  on,  245  ;  Scotus  on, 
247,  248 ;  the  Mystics  of  the  four¬ 
teenth  century  on,  265;  Luther  on, 
276;  Zwingli  on,  286;  Calvin  on,  308; 
the  Socinians  on,  323  ;  the  Creed  of  the 
Arminians  on,  338 ;  the  Dort  Creed 
on,  339 ;  the  governmental  theory  (of 
Grotius),  340;  Episcopius  on,  341; 
Amyraut  on,  343 ;  the  Formula  Con¬ 
sensus  Helvetica  on,  345 ;  Richard 
Baxter  on,  362;  John  Owen  on,  ib. ; 
Locke  on,  375  ;  the  Quakers  on,  379  ; 
Wesley  on,  392;  Edwards  on,  409; 
Bellamy  on,4ii ;  the  younger  Edwards 
on,  412 ;  the  governmental  theory  of, 
characteristic  of  the  New  England 
theology,  413 ;  Henry  B.  Smith  on, 
418;  Bushnell  on,  441-444;  Charles 
Hodge  (and  the  Princeton  theology) 
on,  445;  Coleridge  on,  449;  Moz- 
ley  on,  471 ;  Maurice  on,  473 ; 
Campbell  on,  477  sq. ;  Swedenborg 
'  on,  494;  Schleiermacher  on,  505,  507; 
Dorner  on,  514;  Nitzsch  on,  516; 
Rothe  on,  518  ;  Ritschl  on,  525. 

Augsburg,  Confession,  272,  274,  280,  281, 
283,  290,  291,  293 ;  Diet  of,  272,  287, 
290 ;  Peace  of,  295. 

Augustine,  his  De  Civitate  Dei ,  118,  132, 
182;  on  inspiration,  122;  on  the  de¬ 
cisions  of  councils,  123  ;  on  the  proof  of 
the  being  of  God,  124;  his  mental 
qualities  and  writings,  132,  196;  elimi¬ 
nates  subordinationism,  146;  his  influ¬ 
ence,  176;  experience  and  personal 
traits,  ib.;  determining  factors  of  his 
theology,  177  ;  on  faith  and  knowledge, 
ib. ;  on  the  attributes  of  God,  178;  on 
the  Trinity,  ib. ;  on  the  person  of 
Christ,  ib.;  on  the  seat  of  authority, 
179;  on  the  Church,  ib.,  193;  on  faith 
and  salvation,  180;  on  merits,  ib. ; 
on  the  atonement,  ib. ;  on  the  incar¬ 
nation,  ib. ;  on  the  Sacraments,  181, 
1:83,  193,  254,  256;  on  Providence,  181, 
184;  on  the  relation  of  God  to  evil, 
18 1 ;  on  the  resurrection  and  the  future 
state,  182;  his  point  of  view  compared 
with  Pelagius,  184;  his  theory  of  the 
will,  ib.,  191 ;  on  Adam’s  sin  and  its 
2  O 


consequences,  ib.  sq. ;  his  controversy 
with  Julian,  186;  on  the  origin  of 
souls,  187  sq. ;  letter  to  Jerome,  ib. ; 
on  the  nature  of  character,  190;  on 
baptism,  191 ;  on  grace,  ib. ;  his 
earlier  and  later  views  of  predestina¬ 
tion,  191  sq. ;  discordant  veins  of 
thought  in,  193;  dissent  from,  in  the 
West,  195  ;  his  doctrine  of  predestina¬ 
tion  revived  by  Gottschalk,  206;  his 
doctrine  of  original  sin  compared  with 
that  of  Anselm,  218 ;  his  relation  to 
Aquinas  and  the  Schoolmen,  262;  his 
influence  upon  Luther,  272;  his  sys¬ 
tem  revived  by  the  Jesuits,  332;  and 
by  Jansenius  and  the  Port  Royalists, 
334- 

Augustus,  Emperor,  29. 

Authority,  the  seat  of,  presuppositions 
respecting,  in  the  second  period,  121 ; 
Augustine  on,  179 ;  the  mediaeval  doc¬ 
trine  of,  252;  Wyclif  on,  265  ;  Luther 
on,  278;  Zwingli  on,  287;  Calvin  on, 
298;  the  Ten  Articles  (1536)  on,  310; 
the  Socinians  on,  322 ;  the  Council  of 
Trent  on,  328  ;  the  Arminians  on,  340 ; 
the  Protestant  Scholastic  view  of,  347  ; 
John  Hales  on,  364  ;  Chillingworth  on, 
ib.;  the  Quakers  on,  378 ;  the  Oxford 
school  on,  454,  455;  recent  discussions 
on,  547. 

Averroes,  213. 

Bacon,  Francis,  19,  384. 

Bajus,  Michael,  333. 

Balfour,  Walter,  437. 

Ball,  John,  348,  360. 

Ballou,  Hosea,  437. 

Baptism,  the  Apostolic  Fathers  on,  44, 
46;  earliest  formula  used,  46;  Justin 
Martyr  on,  68;  Irenaeus  on,  87  ;  Ori¬ 
gen  on,  1 12;  the  Greek  Fathers  on, 
167  ;  Augustine  on,  181 ;  the  School¬ 
men  on,  255,  256;  Luther  on,  271, 
281 ;  the  Lutherans  on,  281 ;  Calvin  on, 
305 ;  form  of,  in  vogue  among  the 
Anabaptists,  320  ;  the  Creed  of  Trent 
on,  329,  330;  the  Oxford  Tracts  on, 
456.  See  “  Baptism  of  Infants.” 

Baptism  of  infants,  recognition  of,  in  Ire¬ 
naeus,  87  ;  Calvin  on,  305  ;  Schwenk- 
feld  on,  318;  the  Anabaptists  on,  ib. ; 
Michael  Servetus  on,  321 ;  Dean 
Stanley  on,  474. 

Barclay,  Robert,  378. 


562 


INDEX 


Barnabas,  the  Epistle  of,  35 ;  on  the  per¬ 
son  of  Christ,  45;  on  baptism,  46;  on 
the  second  advent,  47. 

Barneveld,  Olden,  338. 

Barry,  John,  354. 

Baruch,  the  Apocalypse  of,  27. 

Basil,  Bishop  of  Caesarea,  130;  on  the 
Trinity,  143 ;  on  the  character  of  in¬ 
fants,  165. 

Basilides,  his  system,  57. 

Basiliscus,  Emperor,  156. 

Basilius,  202. 

Baumgarten-Crusius,  16,  21  ;  on  Justin 
(Apol.  I.  6),  6S. 

Baur,  F.  C.,  his  theory  of  theological 
development,  14,  534 ;  divisions  of  his 
doctrinal  history,  16 ;  his  theory  of  a 
Pauline-Petrine  dissension,  41,  51 ;  on 
the  Clementine  writings,  51,  55;  his 
classification  of  the  Gnostic  systems, 
55  ;  on  the  Scholastic  method,  215  ;  his 
theory  of  opposing  parties  in  the  early 
Church  anticipated  by  Toland,  375. 

Baxter,  Richard,  his  system,  362. 

Bee,  the  school  of,  210. 

Bede,  the  Venerable,  203. 

Belgic  Confession,  the,  337,  339. 

Bellamy,  Joseph,  411. 

Bellarmine,  Robert,  16,  332,  333,  351. 

Bengel,  J.  A.,  495. 

Bentley,  Richard,  376. 

Berengarius,  210. 

Berkeley,  Bishop,  his  philosophy,  285 ; 
and  Edwards,  403. 

Bernard  of  Clairvaux,  character  of  his 
piety,  224,  225  ;  opposes  Abelard,  225; 
on  faith  and  knowledge,  ib. ;  on  the 
atonement,  ib.;  precursor  of  St.  Francis 
and  the  mendicants,  229 ;  on  the  im¬ 
maculate  conception,  244. 

Beryl,  Bishop  of  Bostra,  103. 

Beza,  337. 

Biblical  criticism,  among  the  Arminian 
scholars,  342;  Louis  Cappel’s  contri¬ 
bution  to,  343 ;  among  the  Deists,  376, 
377;  among  the  Unitarians  in  New 
England,  423 ;  Matthew  Arnold’s  ser¬ 
vices  to,  480  ;  in  Germany  in  the  period 
of  “  illumination,”  497;  the  influence 
of  Hegelianism  on,  534. 

Biblical  theology  in  the  school  of  Coc- 
ceius,  349. 

Biedermann,  534. 

Biel,  Gabriel,  233. 

Bigg,  Charles,  6,  138. 


Bishops,  original,  identical  with  presby¬ 
ters,  76  sq.  ;  the  guardians  of  doctrine, 
78  ;  gradual  precedence  of  the  Roman, 
80,  123  ;  their  subordination  under  the 
papacy,  252;  alone  may  confirm  in 
the  Latin  Church,  256;  Aquinas  on 
their  relation  to  priests,  261 ;  Cranmer 
on,  315;  the  Creed  of  Trent  on,  331; 
Bellarmine  on,  332 ;  John  Hales  on, 
364 ;  the  Oxford  Tracts  on,  455  ;  Canon 
Gore  on,  468.  See  “  Episcopacy.” 

“  Bishop’s  Book,”  the,  311. 

Blaurock, 319. 

Blount,  Charles,  373. 

Blunt,  J.  H.,  314,  466. 

Boccaccio,  267. 

Boethius,  126,  132,  213. 

Bogomiles,  the,  202. 

Bolingbroke,  378. 

Bolsec,  Jerome,  337. 

Bonaventura,  230,  244,  249,  257,  260. 

Boniface  II.,  197;  Boniface  VIII.,  251, 
252,  253. 

Bonn,  Old  Catholic  Conferences  at,  544. 

Bossuet,  16,  336,  380. 

Bostra,  Council  of  (a.d.  244),  103. 

Bound,  Dr.  Nicholas,  362. 

Boyle,  Robert,  376. 

Bradwardine,  250. 

Bretschneider,  500. 

Briggs,  Charles  A.,  548. 

“  Broad  Church”  theology,  in  England, 

473-477  I  in  Scotland,  477~479- 

Brook  Farm  Association,  435. 

Brown,  James  Baldwin,  479. 

Bruce,  A.  B.,  479. 

Bryennios,  35. 

Bucer,  Martin,  290,  312,  313. 

Buckminster,  Joseph  Stevens,  421. 

Buddhism,  Matthew  Arnold  on,  483. 

Bull,  Bishop  George,  20,  99,  144,  370. 

Burnet,  Bishop,  on  the  Latitudinarians, 
366,  367. 

Bushnell,  Horace,  on  the  possibility  of 
theology,  5  ;  on  Christian  nurture,  438  ; 
on  the  Trinity,  438-441 ;  on  the  atone¬ 
ment,  441-444 ;  on  annihilation  of  the 
wicked,  444. 

Butler,  Bishop  Joseph,  388,  389,  390;  in¬ 
direct  anti-Calvinistic  influence,  557. 

Caesarius,  Bishop  of  Arles,  197. 

Cainites,  the,  57. 

Cajetan,  243. 

Calixtus,  George,  379. 


INDEX 


563 


Callistus,  Bishop  of  Rome,  82,  102. 

Calvin,  John,  his  doctrine  on  assurance, 
274 ;  his  influence  on  Melanchthon, 
291;  on  the  Lord’s  Supper,  291,  306 ; 
his  relation  to  Zwingli  and  Luther,  298- 
309  et  passim  ;  his  intellectual  qualities, 
ib. ;  his  religious  experience,  ib. ;  his 
Institutes,  ib.;  on  the  testimony  of  the 
Spirit  to  the  divinity  and  truth  of  the 
Bible,  on  the  nature  of  faith  and 
assurance,  ib. ;  on  predestination,  ib. ; 
was  he  a  supralapsarian,  301;  on 
original  sin,  ib.,  302;  on  two  wills  in 
God,  302 ;  on  the  Church  visible  and 
invisible,  304;  on  the  nature  of  the  Sac¬ 
raments,  305  ;  on  baptism,  ib.  ;  of  in¬ 
fants,  ib. ;  on  the  Trinity,  307;  on  the 
Athanasian  Creed,  ib.;  on  the  incar¬ 
nation,  308;  on  the  atonement,  ib. ;  on 
the  descent  of  Christ  into  Hades,  309 ; 
Hooker  on,  316 ;  his  defences  of  pre¬ 
destination,  337 ;  on  the  Lord’s  Day, 
361.  See  “  Calvinism.” 

Calvinism,  its  spread  resisted  by  Luther¬ 
ans,  292 ;  how  differentiated  from 
Lutheranism,  300 ;  influence  of,  in 
Elizabeth’s  reign,  316;  the  Arminian 
revolt  against,  337  sq. ;  in  the  Canons 
of  Dort,  339 ;  in  the  school  of  Saumur, 
342;  of  Pajon,  346;  defended  by  the 
Puritans,  356 ;  in  the  Westminster 
Confession,  359 ;  in  the  Church  of 
England  in  the  eighteenth  century, 
393;  in  New  England,  394  sq. ;  as 
defended  by  Jonathan  Edwards,  400; 
in  the  Presbyterian  Church,  444 ;  par¬ 
tial  disintegration  of,  549  sq. 

Campbell,  John  McLeod,  his  treatise  on 
the  atonement,  477  sq. 

“  Cambridge  Platform,”  the,  394. 

Cameron,  John,  342. 

Canon  of  the  New  Testament,  the,  its 
origin,  72  sq. ;  the  antilegomena,  74; 
tests  for  admission  of  books  into,  75 ; 
discussion  of,  in  the  post-Nicene  pe¬ 
riod,  121 ;  Luther  on,  279  ;  Zwingli  on, 
287 ;  Calvin  on,  299 ;  Dr.  Arnold  on, 
451- 

Canonization,  condemned  by  Wyclif, 
266. 

Cappel,  Louis,  343,  345. 

Carlstadt,  280,  288. 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  434. 

Carthage,  Council  at,  (A.D.  397)  122; 
the  second,  195. 


Cassian,  John,  his  doctrine,  196. 

Cassiodorus,  133. 

Castellio,  337. 

Catechumens,  school  for,  at  Alexandria, 
39- 

Catharinus,  350. 

Catharists,  the,  263. 

Catholic  Church,  the  old,  the  term  ‘Catho¬ 
lic,’  70 ;  rise  of,  in  the  second  century, 
70-81 ;  recent  organization  under  this 
name,  544. 

Celibacy  of  the  clergy,  rule  of  Second 
Trullan  Council  concerning,  200 ;  de¬ 
prives  them  of  a  sacrament,  261 ; 
Wyclif  on  the,  266 ;  Zwingli  on,  287 ; 
the  Six  Articles  on,  312. 

Celsus,  40,  104. 

Cerinthus,  56,  100. 

Chalcedon,  Council  and  Creed  of,  155, 
156. 

Channing,  William  Ellery,  on  different 
types  of  Unitarians,  420;  his  Baltimore 
sermon,  ib. ;  personal  qualities  and 
preaching  gifts,  421  sq. ;  his  mental 
history,  425  ;  his  doctrine  of  disinter¬ 
estedness,  428 ;  of  sin,  429 ;  of  the 
Fatherhood  of  God,  430  ;  of  the  person 
and  work  of  Christ,  430,  431 ;  his  atti¬ 
tude  toward  the  intuitional  philosophy, 
435- 

Charenton,  Synod  of,  343. 

Charles  the  Bald,  theology  in  the  time 
of,  203 ;  Ratramnus’s  letter  to,  on  the 
Lord’s  Supper,  207  ;  V.,  Emperor,  326, 
32  7- 

Chartres,  school  at,  210. 

Chaucer,  267. 

Cheetham,  on  the  function  of  bishops  of 
the  first  century,  81. 

Chemnitz,  296. 

Chiazza,  the  Bishop  of,  328. 

Chiersy,  second  Council  of,  206 ;  first 
Synod  of,  ib. 

Chiliasm.  See  “  Millennial  reign  of 
Christ.” 

Chillingworth,  William,  364. 

Christ,  the  person  of,  in  the  Pauline  epis¬ 
tles,  25;  in  the  Johannine  teaching, 
26;  the  Apostolic  Fathers  on,  44,  45; 
the  Ebionites  on,  48, 49  ;  in  the  Pseudo- 
Clementines,  50;  the  Gnostics  on,  54, 
56;  the  Ophites  on,  57;  Marcion  on, 
59;  Justin  Martyr  on,  63,  65;  in  the 
Epistle  to  Diognet,  68 ;  Irenseus  on, 
85;  Melito  on,  89;  Tertullian  on,  92; 


564 


INDEX 


Clement  of  Alexandria  on,  95 ;  the 
adoptionist  and  modalistic  views  of, 
98  sq.;  the  Sabellian  views  of,  103; 
Paul  of  Samosata  on,  104 ;  Origen  on, 
107-109,  148;  Novatian  on,  113;  the 
doctrine  of,  introduced  into  baptismal 
creeds  in  the  East,  116;  the  Alexan¬ 
drian  and  Antiochian  schools  on,  com¬ 
pared,  127  ;  the  Arian  doctrine  of,  134, 
136,  148  ;  Marcellus  on,  140 ;  Photinus 
on,  141 ;  the  Apollinarian  doctrine  of, 
148  ;  Athanasius  on,  149  ;  the  Gregories 
on,  150 ;  the  Antiochians  on,  151 ;  Nes- 
torius  on,  152;  Cyril  of  Alexandria  on, 
ib. ;  Eutyches  on,  154;  the  Chalcedon 
Creed  on,  155 ;  the  Monophysite  doc¬ 
trine  of,  156  sq. ;  the  Monothelite  view 
of,  158;  John  of  Damascus  on,  159; 
Augustine  on,  178 ;  the  Adoptionists 
on,  205 ;  the  German  Reformers  on, 
281;  the  Zwinglians  on,  289;  the  So- 
cinian  doctrine  of,  322 ;  the  Arminian 
doctrine  of,  342 ;  Watts  on,  393  ;  Chan- 
ning  on  different  Unitarian  views  of, 
420;  Channing  on,  430;  Bushnell  on, 
439  ;  Liddon  on,  468 ;  Canon  Gore  on, 
ib.  ;  Baron  Holbach  on,  493  ;  Sweden¬ 
borg  on,  494;  the  Moravians  on,  495; 
Kant  on,  499  ;  Schleiermacher  on,  504 ; 
the  Mediating  School  (of  Germany) 
on,  513;  Rothe  on,  518;  Lipsius  on, 
523  ;  Ritschl  on,  526 ;  Kaftan  on,  529 ; 
Herrman  on,  530;  Hegel  on,  533; 
Strauss  on,  ib. 

Christ,  the  Second  Coming  of,  in  the 
Synoptists,  24;  the  Apostolic  Fathers 
on,  47;  the  Ebionites  on,  49;  Justin 
Martyr  on,  67 ;  the  Montanists’  ex¬ 
pectation  of,  82;  Schleiermacher  on, 
5°9- 

Christ,  the  work  of,  the  Ebionites  on, 
49;  in  the  Clementine  writings,  50; 
Justin  Martyr  on,  62  ;  Irenaeus  on,  86  ; 
Clement  of  Alexandria,  95  ;  Origen  on, 
hi;  the  Antiochians  on,  151;  Gregory 
of  Nazianzum  on,  161 ;  the  Greek 
Fathers  on,  162  ;  Athanasius  on,  ib.  ; 
Edwards  on,  408  ;  Channing  on,  431 ; 
Schleiermacher  on,  504  sq.;  Nitzsch 
on,  516;  Ritschl  on,  525.  See  the  two 
preceding  titles  and  “Jesus.” 

Christianity,  its  distinction  from  other 
systems,  1 ;  capable  of  doctrinal  defi¬ 
nition,  ib. ;  the  essential  truth  in,  3  ;  an 
historical  religion,  7 ;  requires  theo-  I 


logical  interpretation,  8 ;  influence  of 
Jewish  thought  and  methods  on,  26; 
tendencies  of  the  age  preceding,  29 ; 
influence  of  Greek  philosophy  on,  29 
sq.;  conception  of,  in  the  Pseudo-Cle¬ 
mentine  writings,  50 ;  peril  of,  from 
Gnosticism,  51,  60 ;  Marcion’s  view  of, 
59 ;  as  conceived  by  the  Greek  Apolo¬ 
gists,  60  sq.;  attacked  by  Julian,  117; 
defended  by  Cyril,  118;  modified  by 
pagan  customs,  171  sq. ;  Abelard  on, 
222;  the  Socinian  view  of,  322;  Mat¬ 
thew  Arnold  on,  482;  Hegelian  inter¬ 
pretation  of,  532.  See  “  Christ,  the 
person  of,”  “  Christ,  the  work  of.” 

Chrysippus,  31. 

Chrysostom,  his  writings,  131 ;  on  origi¬ 
nal  sin,  164,  165 ;  on  faith  and  works, 
166 ;  on  the  Lord’s  Supper,  169,  170. 

Church,  Dean,  275,  452,  458  ;  on  difficul¬ 
ties  in  the  formulas  of  theology,  552  sq. 

Church,  the,  of  the  first  three  centuries 
characterized,  119  ;  its  unity  threatened, 
120 ;  the  scene  of  internal  controversy 
in  the  Nicene  and  post-Nicene  period, 
125  ;  in  the  East,  ritualism  in,  200  ;  the 
division  of  East  and  West  in,  201 ;  the 
hierarchical  form  of,  in  the  Middle 
Ages,  251. 

Church,  the  doctrine  of,  Justin  Mar¬ 
tyr  on,  67;  the  Nicene  and  the  post- 
Nicene  Fathers  on,  123  ;  Augustine  on, 
179, 193  ;  Gregory  I.  on,  198  ;  Luther  at 
the  disputation  at  Leipsic  on,  270;  the 
Lutheran  reformers  on,  281 ;  Luther 
on  its  authority  in  doctrine,  283 ;  Cal¬ 
vin  on,  304 ;  the  Thirty-nine  Articles 
on,  315  ;  the  Anabaptist  view  of,  318 ; 
Coleridge  on,  449;  Whately  on,  450; 
Thomas  Arnold  on,  451 ;  Kant  on, 
499 ;  Schleiermacher  on,  509.  See 
“  Bishops,"  “  Episcopacy,”  “  Church 
and  State.” 

Church  and  State,  after  Constantine,  125  ; 
Wyclif  on,  266;  the  Anabaptists  on, 
318  sq. ;  the  Arminians  on,  338;  the 
Anglo-Catholics  on,  357 ;  the  West¬ 
minster  Confession  on,  360;  Hobbes 
on,  372 ;  Blount  on,  374 ;  Coleridge 
on,  449;  Whately  on,  450;  Thomas 
Arnold  on,  451 ;  Stanley  on,  475.  See 
“  Church,  the  doctrine  of.” 

Church  union,  Constantine  and  Athana¬ 
sius  conservators  of,  120  ;  gradual  inter¬ 
ference  of  the  State  for  the  preservation 


INDEX 


of,  125  ;  Cranmer’s  effort  toward,  315; 
John  Hales  on,  363  ;  efforts  toward,  in 
the  seventeenth  century  :  Calixtus,  379  ; 
Erasmus  on,  ib.;  Hugo  Grotius’s  pro¬ 
posal  for,  380 ;  Spinola  a  promoter  of, 
ib. ;  Leibnitz  and  Bossuet’s  correspond¬ 
ence  concerning,  ib. 

Clarke,  Samuel,  371,  376. 

Claude,  345,  346. 

Claudius  Apollinaris,  Bishop  of  Hiera- 
polis,  36. 

Clement  VIII.,  333. 

Clement  of  Alexandria,  on  faith  and 
knowledge,  6 ;  his  personal  qualities 
and  career,  39 ;  his  writings,  39, 40  ;  on 
justification,  42 ;  his  tendency  toward 
legalism,  ib.;  on  the  person  of  Christ, 
44 ;  on  the  division  of  the  Christian 
books,  73  ;  on  bishops  and  presbyters, 
76 ;  on  the  mission  of  the  Christian 
theologian,  94 ;  on  the  sources  of  Chris¬ 
tian  knowledge,  ib. ;  on  Greek  philoso¬ 
phy,  94,  95  ;  on  the  being  of  God,  95 ; 
on  the  Logos,  ib.;  on  the  Father  and 
Son,  ib. ;  on  the  Holy  Spirit,  ib. ;  on 
the  work  of  Christ,  ib.;  on  the  freedom 
of  the  will,  96;  on  Adam’s  sin,  ib. ;  on 
the  doctrine  of  reserve,  ib. ;  on  the 
Lord’s  Supper,  ib. ;  on  the  future  state, 
ib.;  on  Christ’s  preaching  in  Hades, 
ib. ;  on  the  resurrection,  97. 

Clement  of  Rome,  on  justification,  42; 
on  the  person  of  Christ,  44;  on  the 
Holy  Spirit,  46;  on  the  Episcopate, 
76 ;  the  Epistle  of,  34,  75,  77 ;  the  sec¬ 
ond  epistle  ascribed  to  him,  34. 

Clementine  writings,  the  Pseudo-,  doc¬ 
trinal  contents  of,  50;  origin  of,  51. 

Cocceius,  on  the  doctrine  of  the  Cove¬ 
nants,  348. 

Coelestine  I„  Roman  bishop,  152. 

Coelestius,  183,  190,  194,  195. 

Coleridge,  Samuel  Taylor,  his  influence 
in  New  England,  437 ;  on  the  distinc¬ 
tion  between  reason  and  understand¬ 
ing,  447 ;  on  the  distinction  between 
Nature  and  Spirit,  ib. ;  on  ideas  de¬ 
rived  from  conscience,  ib. ;  on  the 
source  of  belief  in  God,  447  ;  on  inspi¬ 
ration,  448;  on  original  sin,  ib. ;  on 
the  atonement,  449;  on  regeneration, 
ib. ;  on  the  Church,  ib. 

Colet,  John,  268. 

Collins,  Anthony,  376. 

Colosse,  heresy  in  the  Church  at,  50. 


565 

Colossians,  Epistle  to,  the  traces  of  Gnos¬ 
ticism  in,  55. 

Comte,  Auguste,  4,  486. 

Conceptualism,  214. 

Concomitance,  the  doctrine  of,  257. 

Condillac,  492. 

Confession,  an  element  of  the  sacrament 
of  penance,  258 ;  the  office  of  priest 
in  relation  thereto,  ib.;  Innocent 
III.’s  prescription  concerning,  259; 
Aquinas  on,  ib. ;  Wyclif  on,  266 ;  Lu¬ 
ther  on,  271;  Zwingli  on,  287;  the 
Six  Articles  on,  312;  the  Creed  of 
Trent  on,  330,  331. 

“  Confessionalists,”  the,  of  Germany,  523. 

Confirmation,  the  Schoolmen  on,  255, 
256;  Wyclif  on,  266;  the  Creed  ol 
Trent  on,  330. 

Constans,  140-142;  II.,  158. 

Constantine,  guardian  of  church  unity, 
120;  his  effort  to  quell  the  Arian  con¬ 
troversy,  135  ;  convokes  the  Council  of 
Nicsea,  136;  recalls  Arius,  139;  his 
pretended  *  Donation,’  268. 

Constantine,  the  Paulician,  202. 

Constantinople,  councils  and  synods  at, 
I4L  145.  146,  150.  157.  159.  -IZJ,  201 ; 
the  Creed  of,  its  origin  and  contents, 
145,  146. 

Constantius,  140  sq. 

Contarini,  326. 

Coptic  Church,  rise  of  the,  156. 

Cordova,  the  University  at,  209. 

Corinth,  the  Church  of,  the  Epistle  of 
Clement  to,  34 ;  organization  of,  468. 

Cornelius,  Bishop  of  Rome,  83,  113. 

Councils,  significance  of  in  the  Nicene 
and  post-Nicene  period,  123. 

Cousin,  Victor,  485. 

Covenants,  the  doctrine  of,  347,  348,  351. 
See  “Federal  Theology.” 

Cranmer,  310  sq. ;  his  Catechism,  312; 
on  the  Lord’s  Supper,  313;  on  Epis¬ 
copacy,  315. 

Creation,  the  Gnostics  on,  56;  Justin 
Martyr  on,  66 ;  Irenseus  on,  85 ;  Ori- 
gen  on,  107;  the  Nicene  and  post- 
Nicene  Fathers  on,  124 ;  Augustine  on, 
178  ;  the  Schoolmen  on,  237  ;  Edwards 
on,  406;  Lipsius  on,  523. 

Creationism,  163,  187  sq.,  239,  350. 

Cudworth,  Ralph,  366,  368. 

Cumberland,  Richard,  368. 

Cyprian,  his  writings,  39;  on  sacerdotal 
function  of  bishops,  79,  80 ;  on  disci- 


566 


INDEX 


pline,  82,  83 ;  on  the  Lord’s  Supper, 
168. 

Cyril,  Bishop  of  Jerusalem,  130;  his  re¬ 
lation  to  the  Creed  of  Constantinople, 
145 ;  on  freedom  from  original  sin, 
165  ;  on  faith  and  works,  166 ;  on  bap¬ 
tism,  167,  169. 

Cyril,  Patriarch  of  Alexandria,  refutes 
Julian,  117;  his  writings,  i3o;_on  the 
person  of  Christ,  152 ;  organizes  the 
Council  of  Ephesus,  153 ;  deposed, 
ib. ;  is  restored,  154,  155;  on  baptism, 
167 ;  on  the  Lord’s  Supper,  169,  170. 

Dale,  R.  W.,  his  treatise  on  the  atone¬ 
ment,  479;  on  the  loosening  of  the 
rivets  of  doctrinal  definitions,  555  sg. 

D’Alembert,  493. 

Daniel,  the  book  of,  Porphyry  on,  119; 
Anthony  Collins  on,  376. 

Dante,  260,  267. 

Darwinism  and  theology,  488.  See  also 
“  Evolution.” 

David  of  Dinanto,  273. 

Davidis,  Francis,  323. 

Deism,  English,  influence  leading  to,  371 ; 
its  leading  representatives  and  tenets, 
372  sg. ;  answered  by  the  Latitudina- 
rians,  374;  the  Anglo-French,  492  sg. 
See  the  names  of  the  several  writers. 

De  Maistre,  14. 

Demetrius,  Bishop  of  Alexandria,  40. 

Descartes,  19,  381. 

Determinism,  not  strictly  held  by  Augus¬ 
tine,  184 ;  in  Aquinas,  238,  248 ;  in 
Hobbes,  372;  in  Locke,  374;  in  Leib¬ 
nitz,  383;  in  Collins,  376;  in  Jonathan 
Edwards,  401.  See  “  Will.” 

“  Diatesseron,”  the,  37. 

Didache,  the,  analysis  and  date  of,  35 ; 
baptismal  formula  in,  46;  on  the 
Second  Advent,  47 ;  on  the  authorita¬ 
tive  source  of  Christian  knowledge, 
70;  its  evidence  respecting  Episco¬ 
pacy,  77,  80. 

Diderot,  493. 

Didymus,  129,  171. 

Diodorus,  170. 

Diognet,  the  Epistle  to,  37,  68,  69. 

Dionysius  of  Alexandria,  114,  115. 

Dionysius  of  Rome,  115. 

Dioscurus,  oppresses  the  Nestorians, 
154;  convenes  the  Robber  Synod, 
155 ;  deposed,  ib. 

Diospolis,  the  Synod  of,  194. 


Doctrine,  various  Biblical  types  of,  8; 
leadership  in  the  development  of,  10 ; 
factors  in  the  formulation  of,  ib. ;  de¬ 
velopment  of,  in  relation  to  nations, 
13  ;  influence  of  Greek  philosophy  on, 
29  sg. ;  Vincent  of  Lerins  on  the  test 
of  Catholic,  123,  196;  converted  into 
dogmas  in  the  second  period,  125  ;  re¬ 
lation  of  the  patristic  to  the  mediaeval 
period  of,  199.  See  "  Theology." 

Doddridge,  Philip,  393. 

Dogma,  defined,  2;  the  term  in  Biblical 
and  classical’usage,  ib.  ;  history  of,  de¬ 
fined,  ib. 

Dollinger,  538,  544- 

Dominic,  229. 

Dominicans,  214,  252,  328. 

Donation  of  Constantine,  268. 

Dorner,  21 ;  on  Gnosticism,  53 ;  on  the 
relation  of  Calvin  to  Luther  and 
Zwingli,  278;  his  system,  514. 

Dort,  the  Synod  and  Creed  of,  338,  339, 
361. 

Dositheus,  56. 

Drummond,  on  the  Logos  in  Philo,  28. 

Dualism,  in  Alexandrian  Judaism 
(Philo),  27;  in  New  Platonism,  31 ;  in 
Gnosticism,  55  ;  in  Manichasism,  127 ; 
among  the  Paulicians,  202 ;  among  the 
Catharists,  263. 

Dupanloup,  540,  541. 

Durandus,  233,  255. 

Dwight,  Timothy,  his  doctrines,  414, 

423- 

Ebionites,  their  origin,  48 ;  principal 
types  of,  48  sg. ;  Justin  Martyr  on, 
48,  49 ;  their  predecessors  in  the"  Apos¬ 
tolic  age,  49;  the  Essenian,  50;  their 
menace  to  Christianity,  51,  60. 

Eckart,  Master,  264. 

Eclectic  School,  the  French,  485. 

Edessa,  the  school  at,  154. 

Edward  VI.  of  England,  312. 

11  Edwardeans,”  the,  410  sg.  ;  their  influ¬ 
ence  in  Great  Britain,  418;  in  Con¬ 
necticut,  423.  See  “  New  England 
Theology.” 

Edwards,  Jonathan,  originator  of  the 
“New  England  theology,”  395  ;  Dugald 
Stewart  quoted  on,  ib. ;  mental  char¬ 
acteristics,  ib. ;  his  earliest  writings, 
396 ;  how  influenced  by  Locke,  397 ; 
his  treatise  on  the  will,  397  sg. ;  how 
differing  from  Calvinism,  401 ;  on 


INDEX 


567 


original  sin,  402 ;  had  he  read  Berke¬ 
ley?  403 ;  on  the  nature  of  virtue,  403 
sq.;  on  God’s  chief  end  in  creation, 
406;  on  the  work  of  redemption,  408; 
on  “Religious  Affections,’’  ib. ;  ser¬ 
mons  on  justification,  409 ;  on  the 
atonement,  ib. 

Edwards,  Jonathan,  Jr.,  his  doctrines, 
412. 

Eichhorn,  497. 

Elipandus,  Bishop  of  Toledo,  205. 

Elkesaits,  30,  51. 

Elvira,  Council  of,  171. 

Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  433. 

Emmons,  Nathaniel,  his  doctrines,  413. 

Encratites,  the,  37. 

“  Encyclopaedists,”  the,  493. 

England,  eighth-century  culture  in,  203  ; 
the  Renaissance  in,  268;  the  Reforma¬ 
tion  in,  310  sq. ;  its  relation  to  the  Ger¬ 
man  Reformation,  311 ;  theology  in, 
in  the  17th  to  the  middle  of  the  18th 
century,  389  sq. ;  theology  in  the  19th 
century  in,  446-491. 

England,  the  Church  of,  its  sympathy 
with  the  “  Reformed  ”  division  of  Prot¬ 
estantism,  310;  the  Articles  of,  ib.;  its 
relation  to  foreign  Protestant  bodies, 
315 ;  rise  of  the  Anglo-Catholic  party 
in,  353  ;  the  Westminster  Assembly  for 
the  reconstruction  of,  358;  Calvinism 
in,  in  the  18th  century,  393 ;  the  Evan¬ 
gelical  School  in,  446  sq.;  the  Early 
Oriel  School  in,  450  ;  the  Oxford  Move¬ 
ment  in,  451  sq. ;  the  Broad  Church 
party  in,  473  sq.  See,  also,  "  Episco¬ 
pacy.” 

Enoch,  the  Book  of,  27. 

Ephesus,  Council  of,  195. 

Ephraim  of  Edessa,  37. 

Ephraim  Syrus,  131. 

Epictetus,  31. 

Epicureanism,  30. 

Epigonus,  102. 

Epiphanius,  Bishop  of  Salamis,  19,  101, 
I3o,  145.  171.  r72. 

Episcopacy,  in  the  Ignatian  epistles,  36 ; 
rise  of,  76  sq.  ;  its  governmental  func¬ 
tion,  77;  the  Didache  on,  z'A  ;  acquires 
sacerdotal  functions,  79 :  in  England 
in  the  first  age  of  the  Reformation,  315, 
316;  Cranmer  on,  315;  in  relation  to 
the  Thirty-nine  Articles,  ib.  ;  WTitgift 
on,  353 ;  advance  of  the  jure  divino 
theory  of,  in  England,  355 ;  Bishop 


Andrews  on,  ib. ;  Thorndike  on,  356; 
in  conflict  with  Puritanism,  357  ;  abol¬ 
ished,  ib. ;  first  avowal  in  England  of 
the  jure  divino  theory  of,  ib.;  Bishop 
Hall  on,  ib. ;  Laud  on,  358;  effect  of 
the  solemn  League  and  Covenant  on, 
359;  Falkland  on,  363;  Jeremy  Taylor 
on,  365;  Stillingfleet  on,  ib. ;  Coleridge 
on,  449 ;  Whately  on,  450 ;  Dr.  Arnold 
on,  451;  Gore  on,  468;  Stanley  on,  475. 
See  “  Bishops.” 

Episcopius,  338,  340,  341. 

Erasmus,  position  and  services  of,  268 ; 
his  controversy  with  Luther,  272;  on 
church  unity,  379. 

Erskine,  Thomas,  477. 

Essenes,  the,  48. 

Eucharist,  the  term,  47.  See  “  Lord’s 
Supper.” 

Euchites,  the,  202. 

Eugene  III.,  Pope,  226. 

Eulogius,  Bishop  of  Caesarea,  194. 

Eunomius  of  Cyzicus,  130,  142. 

Eusebians,  the,  139,  140,  142. 

Eusebius  of  Caesarea,  118,  119,  130,  135, 
138,  141,  168,  170,  172. 

Eusebius  of  Dorylaeum,  155. 

Eusebius  of  Emisa,  130. 

Eusebius  of  Nicomedia,  135,  139. 

Eutyches,  154,  155,  156. 

Evangelical  School,  the,  of  the  English 
Established  Church,  446  sq.,  453. 

Evagrius,  131. 

Evolution,  referred  to  in  Paley,  389;  as 
held  by  Spencer,  487  ;  by  Darwin,  488  ; 
consistent  with  Theism,  488,  345  sq. 

Excommunication,  82,  266. 

Extreme  unction,  the  Schoolmen  on,  255, 
256,  260  ;  Wyclif  on,  266. 

Ezra,  the  Fourth  Book  of,  27. 

Fairbairn,  A.  M.,  16,  22. 

Faith,  the  Apostolic  Fathers  on,  43; 
Aquinas  on,  249  ;  explicit  and  implicit, 
ib. ;  according  to  Luther,  273  sq. ;  Cal¬ 
vin  on  the  nature  of,  299;  Arminian 
view  of  its  relation  to  justification,  340 ; 
its  function,  according  to  J.  Edwards, 
409  ;  see  “  Faith  and  Knowledge.” 

Faith  and  knowledge,  Clement  of  Alex¬ 
andria  on,  6;  the  Schoolmen  on,  ib.; 
Lessing  and  Hegel  on,  7;  true  view 
of,  ib. ;  Augustine  on,  177;  John  Sco- 
tus  on,  204;  Anselm  on,  216;  Abelard 
on,  221;  Bernard  on,  225;  Hugo  of 


568 


INDEX 


St.  Victor  on,  226;  William  of  Occam 
on,  233. 

Falkland,  Lord,  363. 

Fall,  the.  See  “  Original  Sin.” 

Fathers,  the  Apostolic,  the  term,  34;  their 
place  and  value  in  the  history  of  doc¬ 
trine,  41 ;  Baur  respecting,  ib. ;  their 
relation  to  the  Canon,  41,  42;  their 
doctrine  of  justification  compared  with 
the  Pauline,  42,  43 ;  traces  of  ascetic 
drift  in,  44;  on  marriage,  ib. ;  on  the 
person  of  Christ,  ib.  ;  on  baptism,  46  ; 
on  the  Lord’s  Supper,  ib. ;  on  the 
Second  Advent,  47 ;  on  inspiration, 
75;  their  method  of  interpretation,  76. 

Fathers,  the  Greek,  their  practical  mo¬ 
tive,  129,  161 ;  on  the  atonement,  161, 
162 ;  on  the  origin  of  the  soul,  163 ; 
on  the  freedom  of  the  will,  164 ;  on 
Adam’s  sin,  ib.;  on  the  image  and 
similitude  of  God,  ib. ;  on  regenera¬ 
tion,  165;  on  predestination,  ib. ;  on 
faith  and  works,  166;  on  baptism,  167; 
on  the  Lord’s  Supper,  168. 

Faustus,  Bishop  of  Rhegium,  197. 

Febronius,  536. 

Federal  theology,  the,  its  doctrine  of 
the  Covenants,  347 ;  effect  of  on  the 
doctrine  of  original  sin,  349 ;  antici¬ 
pated  at  the  Council  of  Trent,  350; 
attacked  by  Jansenius,  351;  set  forth 
in  the  Westminster  Confession,  359. 

Felicissimus,  83. 

Felix,  Bishop  of  Urgellis,  205. 

Fenelon,  336. 

Fessler,  543. 

Fichte,  407,  531. 

“  Filioque,”  inserted  in  the  Nicene  Creed, 
147,  205. 

Finney,  Charles  G.,  417. 

Fiske,  John,  547. 

Flacius,  295,  296. 

Flavianus,  155. 

Flint,  Robert,  491. 

Florence,  Council  of,  201,  255. 

Florinus,  letter  of  Irenaeus  to,  38. 

Fonseca,  333. 

Forbes,  Bishop  of  Brechin,  465. 

Forbes,  John,  of  Corse,  20. 

Form  of  Concord,  283;  its  origin  and 
contents,  296. 

Formula  Consensus  Helvetica,  345. 

Forty-two  Articles,  the,  reduced  to  thirty- 
nine,  313. 

Fox,  George,  378. 


Francis  of  Assisi,  229,  230. 

Franciscans,  the  order  of,  rise  and  char¬ 
acteristics  of,  229,  230,  244,  263,  328. 

Frankfort,  Synod  of,  205. 

Fraser,  A.  C.,  on  the  relation  of  J. 
Edwards  to  Berkeley,  403. 

Frebonius,  536. 

Frederick  III.,  the  Elector  Palatine, 
292. 

Freedom  of  the  will.  See  “  Will.” 

Freeman,  James,  419. 

Friedrich,  Johann,  544. 

Froude,  Hurrell,  452,  458. 

Fulbert,  Bishop,  210. 

Fulgentius  of  Numidia,  197. 

Future  state,  the,  Justin  Martyr  on,  67; 
the  Epistle  to  Diognet  on,  69  ;  Irenaeus 
on,  88  ;  Clement  of  Alexandria  on,  96  ; 
Origen  on,  112,  170 ;  Augustine  on,  180 ; 
the  Socinians  on,  324;  Whately  on, 
450;  Maurice  on,  474  ;  Henry  B.  Wil¬ 
son  on,  476 ;  Thomas  Erskine  on,  477  ; 
views  of  recent  English  theologians  on, 
479 ;  Swedenborg  on,  494 ;  Schleier- 
maclier  on,  510;  the  German  Mediat¬ 
ing  School  on,  513;  C.  I.  Nitzsch  on, 
516.  See,  also,  “  Annihilation  of  the 
Wicked,”  “  Restorationism,”  and  “  Im¬ 
mortality.” 

Gale,  Theophilus,  368. 

Galen,  101. 

Gallicanism,  as  defined  in  1682,  336. 

Gardiner,  Thomas,  311,  312. 

Garrisolius,  343. 

Gaunilo,  217. 

Gerbert,  209. 

Geulincx,  382. 

Gibbon,  on  Athanasius,  129,  140. 

Gieseler,  his  History  of  Doctrine,  21 ;  on 
the  origin  of  the  Clementine  writings, 
51 ;  his  classification  of  the  Gnostic 
systems,  55. 

Gilbert,  Bishop  of  Poictiers,  226. 

Gladstone,  William  E.,  544. 

“  Gnesio-Lutherans,”  the,  295. 

Gnosticism,  its  menace  to  Christianity, 
51,  60;  general  character  and  spirit  of, 
51 ;  historical  conditions  leading  to, 
52 ;  sources  of,  ib. ;  main  doctrinal  in¬ 
terests  of,  and  tenets,  53 ;  allegorical 
method  of,  54;  traces  of,  in  the  New 
Testament,  55  ;  classification  of  its  sys¬ 
tems,  ib. ;  various  types  of,  56  sq. ;  its 
effect  on  doctrinal  development,  60. 


INDEX 


569 


/ 


God,  the  attributes  of,  Philo  on,  28 ;  in 
later  Stoicism,  31 ;  Justin  Martyr  on, 
62;  Origen  on,  106;  Augustine  on, 
178;  the  Schoolmen  on,  236;  Spinoza 
on,  382;  Jonathan  Edwards  on,  406; 
Channing  on,  430;  Schleiermacher  on, 
503  ;  Ritschl  on,  525. 

God,  the  being  of,  Plato  on,  30;  the 
New  Platonists  on,  31 ;  Irenaeus  on, 
84;  Clement  of  Alexandria  on,  95; 
Monarchian  view  of,  98  ;  Sabellius  on, 
103  ;  Pseudo-Dionysius  on,  173  ;  Scotus 
on,  204,  236 ;  Thomas  Aquinas  on,  235  ; 
the  Mystics  of  the  fourteenth  century 
on,  264;  the  Socinian  view  of,  322; 
Matthew  Arnold  on,  480 ;  Swedenborg 
on,  494;  the  Mediating  School  on, 
513;  Ritschl  on,  525;  Biedermann  on, 
534- 

God,  proofs  of  His  being,  Tertullian  on, 
90;  the  post-Nicene  Fathers  on,  124; 
Anselm  on,  217  ;  Aquinas  on,  233,  235  ; 
Scotus  on,  236 ;  S.  Clarke  on,  371 ; 
Locke  on,  374 ;  Descartes  on,  381 ; 
Hume’s  criticism  of,  386;  Coleridge 
on,  447 ;  Sir  W.  Hamilton  on,  484 ; 
Mansel  on,  485;  J.  S.  Mill  on,  486; 
Spencer  on,  487;  Huxley  on,  490;  Kant 
on,  498  ;  J.  Muller  on,  515. 

God,  His  relation  to  the  world,  Philo  on, 
27,  28;  the  New  Platonists  on,  31; 
the  Gnostics  on,  53,  56-58;  Marcion 
on,  58;  Justin  Martyr  on,  63;  Au¬ 
gustine  on,  181,  184;  Pelagius  on,  ib. 
See  the  three  preceding  titles. 

Gomarus,  338. 

Gore,  Charles,  45,  78,  468. 

Gorham  case,  the,  467. 

Gottschalk,  his  career  and  doctrines, 
206. 

Gratian,  252. 

Gray,  Asa,  488, 

“  Great  Awakening,”  the,  395. 

Grebel,  319. 

Gregory  I.,  Bishop  of  Rome,  133,  168, 
174,198;  II.,  174;  VII.  (Hildebrand), 
209,210;  IX.,  229;  XVI.,  537. 

Gregory,  Bishop  of  Tours,  133. 

Gregory  of  Nazianzum,  his  writings,  130  ; 
on  the  Trinity,  143  ;  on  the  Holy  Spirit, 
144 ;  instated  at  Constantinople,  145 ; 
on  the  person  of  Christ,  150;  impor¬ 
tance  of  the  atonement  in,  161 ;  on 
the  idea  of  a  ransom  to  Satan,  163 ; 
170,  171. 


Gregory  of  Nyssa,  his  writings,  130;  on 
the  Trinity,  143  sq. ;  on  the  person  of 
Christ,  150 ;  on  the  idea  of  ransom  to 
Satan,  163  ;  on  the  Lord’s  Supper,  169, 
170;  a  restorationist,  170;  171. 

Grotius,  Hugo,  his  theory  (the  govern¬ 
mental)  of  the  atonement,  340 ;  his 
efforts  at  reunion  of  the  churches,  379. 

Guitmund  von  Aversa,  21 1. 

Guyon,  Madame,  336. 

Gwatkin,  H.  M.,  134,  135. 

Hades,  the  doctrine  of,  Irenseus  on,  87; 
Tertullian  on,  93  ;  Clement  of  Alexan¬ 
dria  on,  96 ;  the  Greek  Fathers  on,  170 ; 
descent  of  Christ  into,  Marcion  on,  59  ; 
Irenaeus  on,  87;  Tertullian  on,  93; 
Clement  of  Alexandria  on,  96;  Calvin 
on,  309.  See  “  Future  State.” 

Hadrian,  the  Abbot,  203. 

Hagenbach,  21. 

Haggada,  the,  26. 

Hales,  John,  363. 

Hall,  Bishop  Joseph,  357. 

Hamilton,  Sir  William,  on  the  philosophy 
of  religion,  4,  484  sq. 

Hampden,  Bishop,  137,  138,  456. 

Hare,  Julius  Charles,  473. 

Harnack,  A.,  on  the  function  and  course 
of  doctrinal  history,  2 ;  on  the  Mystic, 
13 ;  his  divisions  of  doctrinal  history, 
17 ;  on  the  influence  of  Greek  culture 
on  theology,  32 ;  on  the  origin  of  the 
Didache ,  35  ;  on  the  date  of  the  Igna- 
tian  epistles,  36;  on  the  Clementine 
writings,  51 ;  on  the  polity  of  the  early 
Church,  78  ;  on  Hippolytus’s  interpre¬ 
tation  of  Theodotus,  101 ;  on  the  gen¬ 
eration  of  the  Son,  109;  on  the  work 
of  Christ,  in  the  Fathers,  128 ;  on  the 
Constantinopolitan  Creed,  145  ;  on 
the  writings  of  Augustine,  180;  on 
Socinianism,  325;  et  passim. 

Harris,  Samuel,  491. 

Hatch,  Edwin,  on  the  influence  of  Greek 
culture  on  the  clergy,  33  ;  on  the  polity 
of  the  early  Church,  78. 

Hebrews,  the  Epistle  to  the,  121,  122, 
279,  328. 

Hefele,  124,  538. 

Hegel,  on  faith  and  knowledge,  7  ;  his  re¬ 
lation  to  the  Tubingen  critical  school, 
14,  534  i  philosophy  of,  532  sq. 

Hegesippus,  42,  76,  79. 

I  Heidelberg  Catechism,  292,  339. 


570 


INDEX 


Hell,  Tertullian  011,94;  the  Schoolmen 
on,  259.  See  “  Future  State.” 

Helvetius,  492. 

Henry  VIII.,  310,  311. 

Heraclitus,  31. 

Heraclius,  158. 

Herbert,  Lord,  of  Cherbury,  372. 

Herder,  500. 

Heresy,  defined,  9 ;  its  relation  to  schism, 
ib. ;  distinguished  from  defective 
knowledge  and  tentative  hypotheses, 
10 ;  its  place  in  doctrinal  history,  ib. 

Hernias,  the  “  Shepherd  ”  of,  34 ;  ascetic 
drift  of,  44 ;  on  marriage,  ib. ;  on  the 
person  of  Christ,  45 ;  on  the  Second 
Advent,  47. 

Herrman,  W.,  529. 

Hilary,  Bishop  of  Arles,  196. 

Hilary,  Bishop  of  Poictiers,  131,  145,  157. 

Hildebert,  Archbishop  of  Tours,  211. 

Hildebrand.  See  “  Gregory  VII.” 

Hincmar,  203,  206. 

Hippo,  Council  of  (A.D.  393),  122. 

Hippolytus,  19,  38,  82,  100-102. 

Hobbes,  Thomas,  372,  373. 

Hodge,  Charles,  345,  444. 

Hofmann,  von,  523. 

Holbach,  Baron,  493. 

Holy  Spirit,  the,  in  the  formulation  of 
doctrine,  n  ;  the  Apostolic  Fathers 
on,  45  ;  Justin  Martyr  on,  64  ;  Irenaeus 
on,  85  ;  Clement  of  Alexandria  on,  95  ; 
Origen  on,  109;  post-Nicene  writers 
on,  144  sq.;  the  Constantinopolitan 
Creed  on,  146;  the  Council  of  Toledo 
on,  147 ;  Alcuin  on,  205 ;  Carlstadt 
and  the  radical  reformers  on  the  rela¬ 
tion  of,  to  the  Word,  280;  Calvin  on 
the  testimony  of,  to  the  divinity  of  the 
Bible,  299 ;  the  Socinian  doctrine  of, 
323 ;  the  Creed  of  the  Arminians  on, 
338;  the  Dort  Creed  on,  339;  John 
Cameron  on,  342;  Pajon  on,  346; 
the  Quakers  on,  378  ;  Wesley  on,  392; 
Rothe  on,  518.  See  “  Trinity.” 

Homoeousians,  139.  See  “  Trinity.” 

Honorius,  the  Emperor,  195. 

Honorius,  Bishop  of  Rome,  158,  200. 

Hooker,  Richard,  316,  353,  354,  361, 

455- 

Hopkins,  Samuel,  and  the  Hopkinsians, 
41 1  sq.,  419. 

Hosius,  135,  136. 

Howe,  John,  371. 

Hubmaier,  319. 


Hugo  of  St.  Victor,  on  faith  and  knowl¬ 
edge,  226;  on  the  atonement,  ib.;  on 
the  number  of  the  Sacraments,  254. 

Humanism,  the  influence  of,  upon  theo¬ 
logical  thought,  267  sq.  See,  also, 
"  Revival  'of  Learning.” 

Humbert,  Cardinal,  210. 

Hume,  4,  386,  486. 

Huss,  John,  267. 

Hutcheson,  Francis,  389. 

Hutton,  R.  H.,  on  Newman,  460,  462. 

Huxley,  T.  H.,  his  philosophical  opin¬ 
ions,  488,  489  sq. ;  his  partial  recogni¬ 
tion  of  ethical  freedom,  545  sq. 

Ialdabaoth,  deity  of  the  Ophites,  57. 

Ibas,  151. 

1  Iconoclastic  controversy,  the,  173  sq. 

Iconodulists,  the,  174. 

Ignatius  of  Antioch,  on  the  person  of 
Christ,  45  ;  on  the  Holy  Spirit,  46  ;  on 
baptism,  ib. ;  on  the  Lord’s  Supper, 
47  ;  the  term  ‘  Catholic  ’  in,  70. 

Ignatius,  the  Epistles  of,  35,  77. 

Ignatius,  Patriarch  of  Constantinople, 
201. 

Illuminism,  the  period  of,  in  Germany, 
494 

Immaculate  conception,  doctrine  of,  49, 
56.  244,  518  ;  made  a  dogma,  539. 

Immortality,  in  the  later  Stoics,  31; 
Justin  Martyr  on,  67;  Origen  on,  164; 
Aquinas  on,  239 ;  Scotus  on,  ib. ;  the 
Socinians  on,  324;  Channing  on,  431 ; 
Theodore  Parker  on,  434 ;  Whately 
on,  450;  views  of  recent  English  writ¬ 
ers  on,  479;  Herder  on,  501 ;  Schleier- 
macher  on,  509.  See  “  Future  Life.” 

Imputation,  Calvin  on,  302;  Placaeus 
on,  3431  Stapfer  on,  344;  Jonathan 
Edwards  on,  ib. ;  the  Conse?isus  Hel¬ 
vetica  on,  345 ;  in  the  Federal  the¬ 
ology,  349;  in  the  Roman  Catholic 
theology,  350;  in  the  Westminster 
Confession,  359;  discarded  from  the 
New  England  theology,  412;  Henry 
B.  Smith  on,  418 ;  in  the  “  Princeton 
theology,”  444.  See  “  Original  Sin.” 

Incarnation,  the,  in  Philo,  28  ;  the  Epistle 
to  Diognet  on,  69 ;  Irenaeus  on,  85 ; 
Origen  on,  109;  Novatian  on,  113; 
Marcellus  on,  141 ;  Apollinaris  on, 
149;  Gregory  of  Nyssa  on,  150;  Peter 
Lombard  on,  228 ;  Aquinas  on,  237 ; 
Luther  on,  278  ;  Calvin  on,  308  ;  Canon 


INDEX 


571 


Gore  on,  468  ;  the  Kenosis  theory,  and 
other  recent  discussions  on,  514  sq. 

Indulgences,  origin  of,  208 ;  in  relation 
to  the  doctrine  of  merits,  250,  259 ;  in 
relation  to  purgatory,  260;  Wyclif  on, 
266 ;  Zwingli  preaches  against,  286 ; 
the  Creed  of  Trent  on,  331. 

Infallibility  of  the  Pope,  William  of  Oc¬ 
cam  on,  233;  Aquinas  on,  252;  Wyc¬ 
lif  on,  266;  Bellarmine  on,  332,  333; 
Arnauld  on,  335 ;  the  French  clergy 
in  the  assembly  of  1682  on,  336  ;  made 
a  dogma,  540  sq. 

Innocent  II.,  223  ;  III.,  258,  259,  335. 

Inspiration,  the  Apostolic  Fathers  on, 
75;  Nicene  and  post-Nicene  views  of, 
122;  Augustine  on,  179;  Agobard  on, 
203 ;  Abelard  on,  222 ;  Aquinas  on, 
233;  Luther  on,  279  sq.;  Calvin  on, 
299 ;  Cappel  on,  343 ;  the  Consensus 
Helvetica  on,  345 ;  the  Protestant 
Scholastic  view  of,  347  ;  Richard  Bax¬ 
ter  on,  362;  Coleridge  on,  448;  Dr. 
Arnold  on,  451 ;  Canon  Gore  on,  468  ; 
Dr.  Temple  on,  476;  Jowett  on,  ib. ; 
Herder  on,  501 ;  the  Mediating  School 
of  Germany  on,  513;  Rothe  on,  517; 
Kaftan  on,  529. 

Irenaeus,  an  authority  in  doctrinal  his¬ 
tory,  19 ;  his  career,  37 ;  his  character 
and  writings,  38 ;  on  inspiration,  75 ; 
on  bishops,  79 ;  on  the  primacy  of  the 
Roman  Church,  80;  his  theological 
spirit,  84;  on  the  being  of  God,  ib.; 
on  creation,  85;  on  sin,  ib. ;  on  the 
person  of  Christ,  ib. ;  on  the  Holy 
Spirit,  ib. ;  on  the  incarnation,  ib. ;  on 
the  work  of  Christ,  86;  on  baptism, 
87;  on  the  Lord’s  Supper,  ib.;  on 
Hades,  87;  on  the  millennium,  ib.;  on 
the  future  state,  88 ;  his  ethical  con¬ 
ception  of  the  gospel,  88 ;  two  phases 
of  doctrine  in,  ib. ;  his  practical  aim, 
89. 

Isidore  of  Seville,  20,  203. 

Jacobi,  501. 

Jacobite  Church,  the,  rise  of,  156. 

James  I.  of  England,  356. 

James,  the  Epistle  of,  received  as  canon¬ 
ical,  121 ;  Luther  on,  279. 

Jansenius  and  Jansenism,  334  sq.,  351. 

Jerome,  on  the  Ebionites,  49 ;  on  the 
identity  of  bishop  and  presbyter,  77 ; 
his  career  and  writings,  131;  the  trans¬ 


lator  of  the  Vulgate,  132;  renounces 
allegiance  to  Origen,  171,  172;  Augus¬ 
tine’s  letter  to,  on  the  origin  of  souls, 
187 ;  attacks  the  Pelagian  doctrine, 
194  ;  his  disagreement  with  Augustine, 
196. 

Jesuits,  their  theology  and  ethics,  332  sq. ; 
their  decline  and  revival,  537. 

Jesus,  the  synoptist’s  view  of,  24 ;  in 
Alexandrian  Gnosticism,  57 ;  in  Mar- 
cion,  59.  See  “  Christ.” 

Jewish  commentaries,  26. 

Joachim  of  Floris,  227. 

John,  the  apostle,  his  abode  at  Ephesus, 
25 ;  his  authorship  of  the  fourth  gos¬ 
pel,  25  sq.;  the  incarnation  in  the 
teaching  of,  26. 

John,  the  Epistles  of,  the  genuineness  of, 
25;  conception  of  Christ  in,  26;  trace 
of  Gnosticism  in,  55 ;  received  as 
canonical,  121. 

John,  the  Gospel  of,  its  genuineness,  25  ; 
conception  of  Christ  in,  26;  Justin’s 
acquaintance  with,  63  ;  the  Monarchi- 
ans  on,  100,  101 ;  Luther  on,  279; 
Matthew  Arnold  on,  484 ;  Ritschl  on, 
525  ;  Kaftan  on,  529  ;  Baur  on,  534. 

John  ft  Lasco,  313. 

John,  Bishop  of  Antioch,  153,  154. 

John  the  Baptist,  23,  24. 

John  of  Damascus,  19;  on  the  person 
of  Christ,  159;  on  the  Trinity,  160; 
on  the  Lord’s  Supper,  169 ;  summary 
of  his  doctrines,  174. 

John  of  Fidanza.  See  “  Bonaventura." 

John  Philoponus,  133. 

John  of  Salisbury,  228. 

John  Scotus.  See  “  Scotus." 

Joseph  II.,  Emperor,  536. 

Jouffroy,  485. 

Jowett,  Benjamin,  476. 

Judaism,  Alexandrian,  Spirit  and  tenets 
of,  27  sq.;  its  relation  to  Gnosticism,  52. 

Judaism  within  and  without  Palestine, 
26  sq. 

Jude,  the  Epistle  of,  traces  of  Gnosti¬ 
cism  in,  ss ;  received  as  canonical, 
121. 

Julian,  the  Apostate,  117. 

Julian,  Bishop  of  Eclanam,  183,  186, 
I9L  195- 

"  Julianists,”  the,  157. 

Julius,  Bishop  of  Rome  (A.D.  337-352), 
140,  141 ;  III.,  326. 

Jurieu,  347. 


572 


INDEX 


Justification,  the  Apostolic  Fathers  on, 
42  sq.;  patristic  compared  with  the 
Pauline  view  of,  43 ;  Aquinas  and  the 
Schoolmen  on,  249,  250,  256 ;  Luther 
on,  273;  the  Ten  Articles  (1536)  on, 
310;  the  Creed  of  Trent  on,  329;  the 
Arminians  on,  340 ;  Edwards  on,  409 ; 
Emmons  on,  414 ;  Swedenborg  on. 
493  ;  Schleiermacher  on,.  508  ;  the  Me¬ 
diating  School  on,  513 ;  Ritschl  on, 
526  ;  Kaftan  on,  529. 

Justin  I.,  156. 

Justin  Martyr,  his  training  and  writings, 
37;  on  the  Ebionites,  48,  49;  his  con¬ 
ception  of  Christianity,  61 ;  on  the 
heathen  philosophers,  62 ;  on  the 
work  of  Christ,  ib. ;  his  twofold  con¬ 
ception  of  God,  ib. ;  on  the  Logos, 
ib. ;  on  the  person  of  Christ,  63,  65 ; 
on  the  Holy  Spirit,  64;  on  the  place 
of  angels,  65;  on  creation,  66;  on  the 
freedom  of  the  will,  ib.;  on  the  atone¬ 
ment,  ib. ;  on  the  Second  Advent,  67; 
on  immortality  and  the  future  state, 
ib. ;  on  the  Church,  ib. ;  on  regenera¬ 
tion,  68 ;  on  baptism,  ib. ;  on  the 
Lord’s  Supper,  ib. 

Justinian,  the  Emperor,  156,  157,  171. 

Kaftan,  his  system,  528,  529. 

Kant,  his  system  and  influence,  4, 497  sq., 
528. 

Kattenbusch,  71,  524. 

Keble,  John,  452. 

Knowledge  and  faith.  See  “  Faith,” 
“  Faith  and  Knowledge.” 

Lacordaire,  537. 

Lambert,  Francis,  312. 

Lambeth  Articles,  315. 

Lamennais,  537. 

Lanfranc,  210. 

Laodicea,  Council  of,  72,  121,  124. 

Laodiceans,  Epistle  to  the,  202. 

La  Place  (Placseus),  343. 

Lardner,  Nathaniel,  376,  389. 

Lateran  Council,  the  Fourth,  227,  257, 
259  ;  the  Fifth,  240,  268.' 

Latitudinarians,  their  rise,  366 ;  Bishop 
Burnet  on  their  leading  representa¬ 
tives,  ib. ;  their  distinctive  traits,  368 ; 
Tulloch  on  their  defects,  ib. ;  their 
work,  369. 

Laud,  Archbishop,  357,  358. 

Laurentius  Valla,  268. 


Law,  William,  390. 

Leibnitz,  380,  383. 

Leipsic,  disputation  at,  270. 

Leipsic  Interim,  the,  295. 

Lenfant,  347. 

Leo  I.,  Pope,  124, 132,  155  ;  II.,  158  ;  IX., 

201,  210,  240. 

Leo  III.,  Emperor,  174;  V.,  174;  VI., 

202. 

Leontius  of  Byzantium,  157. 

Lessing,  his  opinions,  7,  495. 

Liberal  Evangelical  School,  the,  of  Ger¬ 
many,  512  sq.  See  “  Mediating  the¬ 
ology.” 

Liberius,  Roman  Bishop,  143. 

Liddon,  Canon,  452,  467. 

Lightfoot,  Bishop  J.  B.,  on  the  date  of 
the  Ignatian  Epistles,  36;  on  author¬ 
ship  among  the  Fathers,  41 ;  on  the 
theory  of  dissenting  parties  in  the 
Apostolic  age,  42 ;  on  the  identity  of 
bishop  and  presbyter  in  the  church 
at  Philippi,  77 ;  on  the  precedence  of 
the  prophetic  order  in  the  first  cen¬ 
tury,  80. 

Liguori,  Alfonso  da,  538. 

Limborch,  340. 

Limbus  infantum,  259  ;  patrum,  ib. 

Lipsius,  523. 

Locke,  John,  374,  384,  397  sq.,  403. 

Logos,  the  doctrine  of,  in  the  prologue 
of  the  fourth  gospel,  26  ;  Philo  on,  28  ; 
the  Stoics  on,  31 ;  Justin  Martyr  on, 
63  sq.  :  Tatian  on,  64  ;  Theophilus  on, 
ib. ;  Irenaeus  on,  85  ;  Tertullian  on,  91 ; 
Clement  of  Alexandria  on,  94,  95  ;  Paul 
of  Samosata  on,  104 ;  Origen  on,  107 ; 
Methodius  on,  116;  the  Arians  on, 
134, 148  ;  Marcellus  on,  140  ;  Photinus 
on,  141 ;  Apollinaris  on,  149.  See 
“  Christ.” 

Lombard,  Peter,  on  the  atonement,  227 ; 
on  the  incarnation,  228 ;  on  the  image 
and  similitude  of  God,  240 ;  on  Adam’s 
sin,  241 ;  on  the  nature  and  number 
of  sacraments,  254 ;  on  the  effect  of 
baptism,  256;  on  the  Lord’s  Supper, 
257  ;  on  ordination,  261. 

Lombards,  the,  200. 

Longland,  267. 

Long  Parliament,  357,  358. 

Loofs,  21 ;  et  passim. 

Lord’s  Day,  the,  the  early  Fathers  on, 
361 ;  the  Reformers  on,  ib. ;  the  Synod 
of  Dort  on,  ib. ;  Andrews  and  Hooker 


INDEX 


573 


on,  ib. ;  the  Puritan  opinions  on,  361 
sq.  ;  Whately  on,  450. 

Lord’s  Supper,  its  connection  with  the 
Agape,  46 ;  the  Apostolic  Fathers  on, 
ib. ;  Justin  Martyr  on,  68;  Irenseus 
on,  87  ;  Clement  of  Alexandria  on,  96 ; 
Origen  on,  112;  the  Greek  Fathers  on, 
168  sq. ;  Augustine  on,  181 ;  Gregory 
I.  on,  198;  Radbert  on,  207;  Ratram- 
nus  on,  ib. ;  Berengarius  on,  210 ; 
Lanfranc  on,  ib. ;  Anselm  on,  211 ; 
Guitmund  von  Aversa  on,  ib. ;  the 
Schoolmen  generally  on,  255,  257 ; 
Pope  Innocent  III. ’s  proscription  con¬ 
cerning,  258 ;  Luther  on,  271 ;  the 
Lutherans  on,  281,  288;  Zwingli  on, 
286,  289 ;  Carlstadt  and  the  radical 
Reformers  on,  288  ;  the  Marburg  Arti¬ 
cles  on,  289;  Calvin  on,  291,  306,  316; 
Cranmer  on,  313;  Schwenkfeld  on, 
318;  the  Council  of  Trent  on,  330; 
Hooker  on,  354;  Bishop  Andrews 
on,  355;  Thorndike  on,  356;  Arch¬ 
bishop  Laud  on,  358 ;  R.  W.  Emer¬ 
son  on,  433 ;  the  Oxford  School  on, 
454,  458,  463-467 ;  Dean  Stanley  on, 
474- 

Louis  XIV.,  536 . 

Louis  of  Bavaria,  233. 

Lucian,  134. 

Lucidus,  197. 

Luthardt,  523,  527. 

Luther,  Martin,  his  gradual  perception 
of  the  freedom  of  forgiveness,  269; 
the  doctrine  of  his  theses,  270 ;  his 
disputation  at  Leipsic,  ib. ;  his  three 
treatises  of  1520, 270,  271 ;  on  the  priest¬ 
hood  of  all  believers,  270;  on  orders 
and  ordination,  270,  271 ;  on  the  Lord’s 
Supper,  271,  281,  283,  288;  on  bap¬ 
tism,  271,  281;  on  confession,  271 ;  on 
justification,  271,  273  sq. ;  his  contro¬ 
versy  with  Erasmus,  272 ;  the  author 
of  the  Smalcald  Articles,  273 ;  two  de¬ 
fining  characteristics  of  his  theology, 
ib. ;  his  definition  of  justifying  faith, 
ib. ;  his  doctrine  of  assurance,  274  ;  on 
the  relation  of  faith  and  works,  275 ; 
his  doctrine  of  justification  forensic, 
ib. ;  on  the  atonement,  276  sq.;  on  the 
incarnation,  278 ;  on  the  authority  of 
the  Scriptures,  ib. ;  on  the  Canon  and 
inspiration,  279  sq. ;  on  the  “Word  of 
God,”  280;  on  the  relation  of  the 
Word  to  the  Spirit,  ib.  ;  his  conserva¬ 


tism,  283  ;  on  the  Church  as  an  author¬ 
ity  in  doctrine,  ib. ;  on  predestination, 
284,  292;  compared  with  Zwingli,  285, 
286 ;  in  the  Eucharistic  controversy, 
288 ;  points  of  Melanchthon’s  dissent 
from,  291 ;  Calvin’s  relation  to,  298- 
3°9- 

Lutheran  Reformers,  two  characteristics 
of  their  theology,  273;  on  the  doctrine 
of  assurance,  274 ;  on  the  relation  of 
faith  and  works,  ib. ;  on  the  Sacra¬ 
ments,  280 ;  on  the  person  of  Christ, 
281;  on  the  Church,  ib. ;  on  the  min¬ 
istry  as  related  to  the  Word  and  Sacra¬ 
ments,  282 ;  on  original  sin,  ib. ;  their 
system  differentiated  from  Calvinism, 
300.  See  “  Luther,  Martin.” 

Macedonians,  the,  145. 

Macedonius,  Bishop  of  Constantinople, 
145  • 

Mackintosh,  Sir  James,  373. 

“  Magdebury  Centuries,”  the,  20. 

Magistracy,  the  civil,  the  Westminster 
Confession  on,  360 ;  the  Reformers  on, 
ib.  See  “  Church  and  State.” 

Mahan,  Asa,  417. 

Maimonides,  Moses,  213. 

Major,  George,  and  the  Majoristic  con¬ 
troversy,  294,  295. 

Malebranche,  382. 

Mandseans,  127. 

Mani,  127. 

Manichaeism,  its  rise,  doctrines,  and 
spread,  127. 

Manning,  Cardinal,  467. 

Mansel,  H.  L.,  5,  485. 

Marburg,  Conference  of,  289. 

Marcellus  of  Ancyra,  140,  141. 

Marcianus,  155. 

Marcion,  his  temper  and  doctrines,  58 ; 
his  canon,  59,  74;  spread  of  his  sys¬ 
tem,  59. 

Marcus  Aurelius,  31. 

Marius  Mercator,  195. 

Maronites,  the,  159. 

Marriage,  pronounced  a  sacrament  by 
the  Schoolmen,  255,  261 ;  Aquinas  on, 
261 ;  the  Creed  of  Trent  on,  331.  See, 
also,  “  Celibacy  of  the  Clergy.” 

Marsilius  Ficinus,  235. 

Martin  I.,  Bishop  of  Rome,  158. 

Martineau,  James,  491. 

Martyr,  Peter,  312. 

Martyrs,  veneration  of,  172. 


574 


INDEX 


Mary,  the  mother  of  Jesus,  150, 152,  155, 
159 ;  the  worship  of,  172,  244,  263,  486, 

54°- 

Mather,  Cotton,  419. 

Maurice,  Duke  of  Saxony,  295. 

Maurice,  Frederick  Denison,  473. 

Maxentius,  157. 

Maximilla,  82. 

Maximus,  158,  159. 

Maximus,  the  Confessor,  173,  204. 

Mayhew,  Jonathan,  419. 

Mead,  Charles  M.,  524,  527. 

“  Mediating  Theology,”  the,  of  Germany, 
512  sq. 

Meier,  138. 

Melanchthon,  his  works,  272;  presents 
the  Augsburg  Confession,  273  ;  on  the 
relation  of  faith  and  works,  274 ;  on  the 
Church,  282  ;  on  original  sin,  ib.  ;  points 
of  dissent  from  Luther,  291 ;  his  change 
of  opinion  on  the  Lord’s  Supper,  ib. ; 
personal  traits,  292,  294 ;  his  adoption 
of  Synergism,  293;  on  the  necessity 
of  good  works,  ib.  ;  at  the  colloquy  of 
Ratisbon,  326 ;  on  the  civil  magistracy, 
360;  on  the  Lord’s  Day,  361. 

Melchisedekians,  the,  101. 

Meletius  of  Antioch,  143-146. 

Melito,  Bishop  of  Sardis,  36;  materials 
for  doctrinal  history  in,  89. 

Memnon,  153,  154. 

Menander,  56. 

Mennas,  epistle  to,  171. 

Menno  Simons  and  the  Mennonites,  319. 

Merit,  the  doctrine  of,  Augustine  on, 
180;  Alexander  of  Hales  on,  250;  the 
Schoolmen  on,  259;  Wyclif  on,  266. 

Messiah,  prevalent  Jewish  conception  of, 
27. 

Mestrezat,  345. 

Methodist  revival,  390 ;  its  relat’on  to  the 
Evangelical  School  of  the  Established 
Church,  446. 

Methodius,  Bishop  of  Patara,  his  teach¬ 
ings  in  opposition  to  Origen,  115,  170; 
on  sin,  164. 

Michael  Caerularius,  201. 

Milan,  Synod  of,  142. 

Mill,  J.  S.,  his  philosophy,  6,  486. 

Millennial  reign  of  Christ,  the  doctrine 
of,  in  Irenseus,  84,  87;  in  Tertullian, 
93 ;  rejected  by  Clement  of  Alexan¬ 
dria,  97;  in  Origen,  112;  introduced 
among  the  Anabaptists,  319. 

Miltiades,  the  rhetorician,  36,  75. 


Minucius  Felix,  37. 

Miracles,  Aquinas  on,  235;  prominence 
of  the  proof  from,  in  the  Arminian 
system,  340;  Wools  ton  on,  373,  3  77; 
Hume  on,  387 ;  Parker  on,  434 ; 
Channing  on,  435 ;  Matthew  Arnold 
on,  483;  Huxley  on,  490 ;  Lessing  on, 
496 ;  Kant  on,  499 ;  Wegscheider  on, 
500  ;  Schleiermacher  on,  508  ;  the  Ger¬ 
man  Mediating  School  on,  513  ;  Rothe 
on,  517 ;  Ritschl  on,  525 ;  Strauss  on, 
533- 

Mitchell,  A.  F.,  348,  360. 

“  Modalists,”  the,  99,  102,  103. 

M  older,  14,  538. 

Molina  and  the  Molinists,  333. 

Molinos,  336. 

Moller,  W.,  135,  159,  327. 

Monarchianism,  on  the  being  of  God, 
98 ;  two  types  of,  ib.  ;  vanquished  by 
Origen,  104. 

Monasticism,  172. 

Monophysites,  the,  and  the  Monophysite 
controversy,  156  sq. 

Monothelite  controversy,  the,  158. 

Montalembert,  537. 

Montanism,  its  rise,  81 ;  its  teachings  and 
practices,  82;  its  spread  and  influ¬ 
ence,  ib. 

Montanus,  81. 

Montauban,  the  school  of,  343,  345. 

“  Moralism,”  in  the  Apostolic  Fathers, 
42,  43-;  in  the  Apologists,  61 ;  in  Ire- 
naeus,  88  ;  in  Tertullian,  92 ;  in  Pelagius, 
183 ;  in  the  Schoolmen,  251 ;  in  Ar- 
minianism,  340. 

Moravians,  the,  495. 

More,  Hannah,  446. 

More,  Henry,  368,  374. 

More,  Thomas,  268. 

Morgan,  Thomas,  377. 

Mosheim,  20. 

Mozarabic  Liturgy,  the,  205. 

Mozley,  J.  B.,  on  Newman,  16,  459;  on 
the  Lord’s  Supper,  466 ;  his  career  and 
writings,  469 ;  on  mysterious  truths, 
470;  on  the  progressive  character  of 
Old  Testament  revelation,  471 ;  on  the 
atonement,  ib. 

Muller,  Julius,  21 ;  on  the  origin  of  the 
belief  in  God,  515  ;  on  the  ground  and 
cause  of  sin,  ib. 

Munscher,  16,  20. 

Miinzer,  Thomas,  318. 

Muratorian  Fragment,  the,  74. 


INDEX 


575 


Murray,  John,  436. 

Mysteries,  the  Greek,  their  influence  on 
Christian  usages,  32,  166,  172. 

Mysticism,  the  nature  of,  n;  kinds  of, 
ib. ;  point  of  similarity  to  rationalism, 
13 ;  revived  and  systematized  by  the 
Schoolmen,  230 ;  in  the  fourteenth  cen¬ 
tury,  264;  in  the  wake  of  the  Reforma¬ 
tion,  317;  its  development  in  the  form 
of  Quietism,  336;  in  Thomas  More, 
368  ;  in  the  Quakers,  378. 

Mystics,  the,  of  the  fourteenth  century, 
their  theology,  264. 

Naassenes,  the,  57, 

Nazarenes,  48.  See  “  Ebionites,” 

Neander,  16,  17,  21;  his  classification  of 
the  Gnostic  systems,  55 ;  on  Justin’s 
idea  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  65  ;  on  Augus¬ 
tine’s  Realism,  185  ;  on  the  eschatology 
of  Paul,  516. 

Nestorians,  the,  their  separation  from 
the  Greek  Church,  154, 

Nestorius  and  the  Nestorian  contro¬ 
versy,  15 1  sq. 

“  New  England  theology,”  410-418  ;  in¬ 
fluence  of,  in  England,  418 ;  in  the 
United  States,  ib .,  445. 

New  Platonism,  31,  173,  177,  204. 

Newman,  J.  H.,  his  theory  of  develop¬ 
ment,  14  sq.,  459  ;  on  the  term  ‘  consub- 
stantial,’  32 ;  his  program  of  doctrine 
for  the  Oxford  School,  454;  on  Apos¬ 
tolic  succession,  455;  his  influence  on 
the  Oxford  Movement,  457 ;  his  tract 
on  the  Thirty-nine  Articles,  ib. ;  his 
conversion  and  its  effect,  458  sq. ;  ex¬ 
planation  of  his  career,  460  sq. 

Nicaea,  Council  of,  convoked,  136;  parties 
represented  at,  138  ;  its  doctrinal  work, 
139;  the  Second  Council  of,  174,  200. 

Nicene  Creed,  its  formation,  138  sq. ; 
how  changed  in  the  Constantinopoli- 
tan,  146  ;  addition  of  “filioque”  to,  147  ; 
adopted  in  Lutheran  creeds,  283.  See 
11  Nicaea,  Council  of.” 

Nicholas  I.,  Pope,  201. 

Nicholas  von  Amsdorf,  294. 

Nicole,  334. 

Niedner,  his  classification  of  the  Gnostic 
systems,  55. 

Nitzsch,  Carl  Immanuel,  12,  515. 

Nitzsch,  Friedrich,  17,  21. 

Noetus,  102,  103. 

Nominalism,  213,  214,  216,  233,  262, 


Norris,  John,  368. 

Norton,  Andrews,  420,  421. 

Novatian  and  the  Novatians,  83,  113. 

“  Oberlin  Theology,”  the,  417. 

Occam,  William  of,  5,  257,  262. 

“  Occasionalists,”  the,  382. 

Ochino  Bernardino,  312. 

Octavius,  37. 

Gicolampadius,  291. 

“  Old  Catholic  ”  Movement,  the,  544. 

“  Old  School  ”  Presbyterians,  the,  418. 

Olevianus,  292. 

Ophites,  the,  57. 

Optatus  of  Milevis,  180. 

Orange,  Council  and  Creed  of,  197. 

Orders  and  ordination,  the  Schoolmen 
on,  255,  261;  Wyclif  on,  266;  Luther 
on,  270,  271 ;  Hooker  on,  316,  354;  the 
Creed  of  Trent  on,  330,  331 ;  the 
Quakers  on,  379. 

Oriel  School,  the  Early,  its  representa¬ 
tives  and  theology,  450,  451. 

Origen,  his  training  and  career,  40;  his 
writings,  ib.,  104;  on  inspiration,  75; 
his  spirit  and  aim,  105 ;  a  .scriptural 
theologian,  ib.  ;  his  allegorical  method, 
ib. ;  his  doctrine  of  reserve,  106 ;  on 
the  attributes  of  God,  ib. ;  on  the  free¬ 
dom  of  the  will,  107,  116;  on  creation, 
107 ;  on  the  Logos,  107,  148 ;  on  the 
relation  of  the  Son  to  the  Father,  107 ; 
on  the  person  of  Christ,  107,  109,  148 ; 
on  the  Incarnation,  109 ;  on  the  Holy 
Spirit,  ib. ;  on  the  preexistence  and 
fall  of  men,  109,  163;  on  the  design  of 
the  world,  no;  on  divine  justice,  ib.; 
on  Providence,  m  ;  on  the  work  of 
Christ,  ib. ;  on  the  future  state,  H2, 
170;  on  baptism,  112;  on  the  Lord’s 
Supper,  112,  168;  on  the  Resurrection, 
112;  his  teaching  and  influence,  113, 
116,  119;  dissent  from,  in  the  East, 
115,  128,  170  ;  the  crusade  against,  and 
its  issue,  17 1. 

Original  sin,  the  doctrine  of,  Clement 
of  Alexandria  on,  96  ;  the  Greek 
Fathers  on,  164 ;  Augustine  on,  184  sq. ; 
Ambrose  on,  187;  Pelagius  on,  190; 
John  Cassian  on,  196;  Anselm  on, 
217  sq.;  Abelard  on,  222;  Aquinas  on, 
240,  242  sq.;  Scotus  on,  241;  Peter 
Lombard  on,  ib. ;  the  Lutheran  Re¬ 
formers  on,  282;  the  Form  of  Concord 
011,283;  Zwingli  on,  288;  Flavius  on, 


576 


INDEX 


296;  Calvin  on,  301,  302;  the  Socin- 
ians  on,  325 ;  the  Creed  of  Trent  on, 
328  ;  the  Dort  Creed  on,  339  ;  the  Ar- 
minians  on,  340;  Placeeus  on,  343; 
the  Federal  theology  on,  349;  the  Fed¬ 
eral  theory  of,  anticipated  by  Catha- 
rinus,  350;  Dominicus  Soto  on,  351; 
Bellarmine  on,  ib. ;  Jansenius  on,  352; 
Hooker  on,  354;  the  Westminster 
Confession  on,  359;  Richard  Baxter 
on,  362 ;  Locke  on,  374 ;  the  Quakers 
on.  379 1  the  Wesleyan  doctrine  of, 
392;  Jonathan  Edwards  on,  402 ;  Bel¬ 
lamy  on,  411;  Hopkins  on,  ib.;  im¬ 
putation  discarded  from,  in  the  New 
England  theology,  412 ;  Jonathan  Ed¬ 
wards,  Jr.,  on,  ib. ;  Emmons  on,  413; 
President  Dwight  on,  414 ;  Taylor  on, 
415;  Park  on,  417;  Henry  B.  Smith 
on,  418;  Charles  Hodge  (the  Prince¬ 
ton  theology)  on,  444;  Coleridge  on, 
448;  Mozley  on,  470 ;  Schleiermacher 
on,  504;  Dorner  on,  *514;  Rothe  on, 
318  ;  Ritschl  on,  527. 

Orosius,  194. 

Orr,  James,  479,  530. 

Osiander,  Andrew,  and  the  Osiandrian 
controversy,  295. 

Otto,  99. 

Owen,  John,  350,  362,  371. 

Oxford  Movement,  the,  452-472 ;  sources 
of  information  concerning,  and  leaders, 
451,  452;  contrasted  with  the  Wes¬ 
leyan  movement,  452 ;  occasion  of  its 
rise,  ib. ;  its  general  character  and 
principles,  453  sq. ;  on  the  doctrine  of 
the  Sacraments,  454,  456,  463-467 ;  its 
particular  aim,  455 ;  its  propaganda 
through  the  Tracts,  ib.  ;  the  Hampden 
controversy,  456 ;  the  Library  of  the 
Fathers  projected,  ib. ;  progress  of, 
457;  the  secession  of  Newman,  458  sq.; 
Pusey  assumes  leadership  of,  462. 

Pachomius,  171. 

Pajon,  Claude,  and  Pajonism,  346. 

Paley,  William,  388,  389. 

Pallivicini,  327. 

Palmer,  William,  452. 

Pamphilus,  170. 

Pantaenus,  39. 

Pantheism,  has  roots  in  Plato’s  theory  of 
ideas,  30;  in  John  Scotus,  204;  com¬ 
bated  by  the  Schoolmen,  213  ;  of  Spi¬ 
noza,  382;  of  Matthew  Arnold,  480; 


of  Schleiermacher,  510;  modern  Ger¬ 
man  schools  of,  513  sq. ;  seen  to  be  a 
half-truth,  546. 

Papacy,  the,  its  growth,  251  sq. ;  its  pre¬ 
rogatives  in  the  Middle  Ages,  252; 
so-called  “  Reformers  ”  before  the  Ref¬ 
ormation  concerning,  263  sq. ;  Luther 
on,  270  sq. ;  Erasmus  on,  272;  Me- 
lanchthon  on,  282;  Calvin  on,  304; 
Servetus  on,  321 ;  and  the  Council  of 
Trent,  326-332 ;  how  regarded  by  the 
Jesuits,  332;  Bishop  Andrews  on, 
355;  in  the  eighteenth  century,  536  j^.; 
and  the  Vatican  Council,  539  sq. 

Papias,  27,  36,  47. 

Park,  Edwards  A.,  417. 

Parker,  Theodore,  422,  433  sq. 

Pascal,  Blaise,  335. 

Paschasius  Radbert,  203,  207,  208. 

Patripassianism,  99,  102. 

Paul,  the  Apostle,  his  training,  8 ;  his 
epistles  on  the  person  of  Christ,  25  ; 
relation  to  Peter,  41 ;  compared  wfith 
the  Apostolic  Fathers  on  justification, 
43 ;  attitude  of  the  Ebionites  towards, 
49)  5°;  quoted  to  defend  Gnosticism, 
54;  his  eschatology,  516. 

Paul,  III.,  Pope,  326;  IV.,  327,  333. 

Paul  of  Samosata,  Bishop  of  Antioch, 
103  sq.,  115. 

Paulicians,  their  origin  and  doctrines, 
202. 

Paulinus,  146. 

Paulus,  158,  500. 

Pelagian  controversy,  the,  183  sq. ;  in 
the  East,  194. 

Pelagius,  his  career  and  personal  quali¬ 
ties,  183,  194 ;  his  point  of  view  com¬ 
pared  with  Augustine,  183 ;  on  the 
relation  of  God  to  the  world,  184;  on 
human  freedom,  ib. ;  on  Adam’s  sin, 
190;  his  writings,  ib.,  note  ;  his  concep¬ 
tion  of  the  nature  of  character,  ib. ; 
on  the  privileges  of  the  baptized,  191 ; 
on  grace,  ib. ;  attacked  in  the  East,  and 
condemned,  194,  195.  See  “  Pelagian 
controversy.” 

Penance,  Gregory  I.  on,  198;  rise  and 
growth  of  the  system  of,  in  the  West¬ 
ern  Church,  208 ;  recognized  as  a 
sacrament  by  the  Schoolmen,  255,  256  ; 
modification  of,  in  the  Middle  Ages, 
258 ;  three  elements  of,  and  the  rela¬ 
tion  of  the  priest  thereto,  ib. ;  Luther’s 
thesis  on,  270;  Zwingli  on,  287;  the 


INDEX 


577 


Creed  of  Trent  on,  330,  331 ;  the  Jesuits 
on,  333;  Hooker  on,  354;  Pusey’s  de¬ 
fence  of,  466. 

Penn,  William,  378. 

Pentateuch,  the,  the  rise  of  the  modern 
criticism  of,  497. 

Peratae,  the,  57. 

Percival,  Henry  R.,  465. 

Perfection,  the  Wesleyan  doctrine  of, 
392;  Oberlin  view  of,  417. 

Perseverance,  Augustine  on,  192;  Cal¬ 
vin’s  doctrine  of,  302;  Arminian  doc¬ 
trine  of,  338  ;  doctrine  of  the  Synod  of 
Dort  on,  339  ;  the  Council  of  Trent  on, 
330. 

Peshito,  the,  74. 

Petavius,  20,  138. 

Peter,  the  Apostle,  his  relations  with 
Paul,  41 ;  the  episcopal  precedence  of, 
80;  the  Schoolmen  on  the  primacy  of, 
252 ;  the  Epistles  of,  received  as  canon¬ 
ical,  121 ;  Luther  on,  279  ;  apocryphal 
Gospel  of,  74. 

Peter,  Archbishop  of  Alexandria,  116. 

Peter,  Abbot  of  Cluny,  223. 

Petrarch,  267. 

Pfleiderer,  Otto,  534. 

Philippi,  523. 

Philippians,  the,  Polycarp’s  Epistle  to, 

36. 

Philippists,  the,  295. 

Philippopolis,  Council  of,  141. 

Philo,  the  sources  of  his  system,  27; 
dualism  in,  ib. ;  his  doctrines,  28  sq.  / 
forerunner  of  New  Platonism,  31. 

Philosophy,  contrasted  with  Christianity, 
1 ;  relation  of,  to  theology,  7,  213 ;  set 
free  from  subjection  to  the  Church,  19, 
381;  influence  of  Greek,  on  doctrine, 
29  sq. ;  after  Plato  and  Aristotle,  30; 
in  the  second  period,  126  ;  in  the  Scho¬ 
lastic  period,  213.  See  Table  of  Con¬ 
tents. 

Photinus  of  Sirmium,  140,  142. 

Photius,  201,  202. 

Pictures  and  images  in  the  churches,  171, 
172,  174,  200,  203,  263,  287,  310,  331. 
See,  also,  “  Iconoclastic  Controversy.” 

Pietism,  494. 

Pighius,  Albert,  337. 

Pilgrim  Fathers,  the,  394. 

Pius  IV.,  332;  V.,  332,  333;  VII.,  537; 
IX.,  538  sq. 

Placaeus  (La  Place),  his  doctrine  of  im¬ 
putation,  343. 

2  P 


Plato,  his  doctrine  of  ideas,  30;  on  the 
being  of  God,  ib.;  on  the  soul  and  re¬ 
demption,  ib. ;  his  influence  on  Justin 
Martyr,  63;  on  the  Schoolmen,  213, 
214 ;  on  the  Latitudinarians,  366. 

Plotinus,  31. 

Plutarch,  29. 

“  Pneumatomachians,”  the,  145. 

Polycarp,  36,  37,  41,  45 ;  the  martyrdom 
of,  37- 

Porphyry,  1 1 8,  214. 

Port  Royalists,  the,  334. 

Positivism,  486. 

Possessor,  197. 

Pothinus,  37. 

Powell,  Baden,  476. 

Praxeas,  102,  103. 

Prayer-book,  the,  of  Edward  VI.,  314. 

Predestination,  Origen  on,  in  ;  the  Greek 
Fathers  on,  165  ;  earlier  and  later  views 
of  Augustine  on,  191  sq. ;  John  Cassian 
on,  196 ;  the  Gottschalk  controversy 
on,  206 ;  John  Scotus  on  the  term,  ib. ; 
Luther  on,  284,  292;  Zwingli  on,  287; 
Calvin  on,  299  sq. ;  the  Thirty-nine 
Articles  on,  314 ;  the  Creed  of  Trent 
on,  330;  the  scientia  media  theory  of 
Molina  concerning,  333;  the  Armin- 
ians  on,  337,  338  ;  the  Dort  Creed  on, 
339;  Amyraut  on,  343;  J.  Wesley  on, 
391 ;  in  Protestant  Scholasticism,  347  ; 
Hooker  on,  354 ;  the  Westminster 
Confession  on,  359;  Richard  Baxter 
on,  362 ;  Edwards  on,  401 ;  Canon 
Mozley  on,  470. 

Presbyterians,  the  English,  influence  of 
their  jure  divino  claim  on  Episcopacy, 
3!6,  355;  in  the  Westminster  Assem¬ 
bly.  358. 

Price,  Richard,  389. 

Princeton  theology,  444. 

Prisca,  82. 

Probabilism,  the  doctrine  of,  held  by  the 
Jesuits,  334,  538. 

Prosper  of  Aquitaine,  132,  196. 

Providence,  Origen  on,  in  ;  Augustine 
on,  181 ;  the  Thomists  and  Scotists  on, 
238.  See,  also,  “  God,  relation  of  to 
the  world.” 

Prudentius,  207. 

Pseudo-Clementine  writings,  the.  See 
“  Clementine  Writings.” 

Pseudo-Dionysius,  126,  167,  173,  204, 
213. 

Pseudo-Isidorian  decretals,  251. 


578 


INDEX 


Pulleyn,  Robert,  227. 

Purgatory,  Augustine  on,  183;  Gregory 
I.  on,  198 ;  Scholastic  doctrines  of, 
259;  relation  of  indulgences  to,  260; 
Luther’s  thesis  on,  270;  Zwingli  on, 
287;  the  Ten  Articles  (1536)  011,310; 
the  Creed  of  Trent  on,  331. 

Puritans,  rise  of  the,  356  ;  their  aim,  356, 
357  ;  their  view  of  the  Lord’s  Day,  361. 

Pusey,  Edward  B.,  on  the  seat  of  author¬ 
ity,  454 ;  becomes  leader  of  the  Ox¬ 
ford  Movement,  462 :  his  personal 
traits,  463 ;  on  the  Eucharist,  ib. ;  his 
doctrine  of  the  Eucharist,  compared 
with  the  Lutheran  and  Calvinistic,  464. 

Quadratus,  36. 

Quakers,  the  tenets  of,  378. 

Quesnel,  335. 

Quietism  in  the  Roman  Catholic  Church, 
336. 

Rabanus  Maurus,  203,  206,  207. 

Rabulas,  154. 

Racovian  Catechism,  the,  321. 

“  Rational  Theology  ”  in  England,  362. 

Rationalism,  and  the  Scriptures,  12; 
general  spirit  of,  12, 13, 19  ;  in  Abelard, 
222;  of  the  Socinians,  322;  in  Ger¬ 
many,  494  sq. 

Ratisbon,  Colloquy  at,  326. 

Ratramnus,  203,  207. 

Realism,  in  Augustine,  185;  its  later 
prevalence,  ib.;  conjoined  with  crea¬ 
tionism  in  early  theologians,  187;  two 
main  forms  of,  214;  of  Anselm,  217; 
of  Scotus,  232  ;  opposed  by  Durandus, 
233 ;  216,  224. 

Reason,  in  the  formulation  of  doctrine, 
11 ;  Clement  of  Alexandria  on,  94; 
Bernard  of  Clairvaux  on,  225;  the 
Schoolmen  on,  212 ;  Abelard  on,  221 ; 
the  Socinians  on,  322;  place  of,  in  the 
‘‘Rational  Theology,”  363,366;  Falk¬ 
land  on,  363;  John  Toland  on,  375; 
Anthony  Collins  on,  376;  Coleridge 
on,  447;  Lessing  on,  495;  Kant’s 
definition  of,  497 ;  Herder  on,  500 ; 
Jacobi  on,  501. 

Recared,  King  of  Spain,  147. 

Redemption,  central  truth  of  Christianity, 
4;  Plato  on,  30';  the  Gnostics  on,  57, 
58,  60;  Marcion  on,  59;  Justin  Martyr 
on,  62;  Irenaeus  on,  86;  Clement  of 
Alexandria  on,  95;  in  Manichseism, 


127;  Athanasius  on,  136;  the  Antio- 
chians  on,  151.  See  “  Christ,”  et  pas¬ 
sim  . 

Reformed  Church,  292,  347,  350. 

Regeneration,  Justin  Martyr  on,  68; 
Irenaeus  on,  87;  Tertullian  on,  93: 
Clement  of  Alexandria  on,  96  ;  the 
Greek  Fathers  generally  on,  165;  the 
Mystics  of  the  fourteenth  century  on, 
265;  Pajonistic  view  of,  346;  Wesley 
on,  392 ;  the  younger  Edwards’s  defi¬ 
nition  of,  412;  President  Dwight  on, 
414;  Henry  B.  Smith  on,  418;  Cole¬ 
ridge  on,  449;  the  Oxford  Tracts  on, 
456;  Schleiermacher  on,  508. 

Regensburg,  Synod  of,  205. 

Regulcz  Jidei,  71,  72,  76. 

Reid,  Thomas,  385,  387. 

Reimarus,  496. 

Reinhard,  500. 

Remigius,  207. 

Renaissance.  See  "  Revival  of  Learn¬ 
ing.” 

Renan,  21. 

Reserve,  the  doctrine  of,  in  Clement  of 
Alexandria,  96;  in  Origen,  106;  tract 
of  Isaac  Williams  on,  457. 

Restorationism,  Origen  on,  112  ;  rejec¬ 
tion  of  his  opinion,  170;  as  held  by 
American  Universalists,  437 ;  held  by 
Thomas  Erskine,  477  ;  held  by  Schleier¬ 
macher,  510;  position  of  the  Mediat¬ 
ing  School  respecting,  516. 

Resurrection,  Justin  Martyr  on,  67; 
Clement  of  Alexandria  on,  97  ;  Origen 
on,  112;  Augustine  on,  182. 

Reuchlin,  John,  268. 

Reuter,  193. 

Revelation,  the  Nicene  and  post-Nicene 
writers  on,  124;  Thomas  Aquinas  on, 
234;  Jeremy  Taylor  on,  365;  the 
Deists’  method  of  treating,  373;  the 
Latitudinarians  on,  374;  Locke  on 
the  need  of,  375 ;  the  attitude  of  Ra¬ 
tionalism  toward,  494 ;  Lessing  on, 
495;  Rothe  on,  517;  Herrman  on,  530. 

Revelation,  the  Book  of,  traces  of  Gnosti¬ 
cism  in,  55  ;  concerning  its  canonicitv, 
121 :  Dionysius  of  Alexandria  on,  114; 
Zwingli  on,  287. 

Revival  of  Learning,  the,  effect  of,  on 
theological  thought,  18  sq.,  267  sq. 

Rheims,  school  at,  210;  Council  of,  226. 

Rice,  W.  N.,  on  the  theological  opinion 
of  men  of  science,  489. 


INDEX 


Richard  of  St.  Victor,  226,  230. 

Ridgley,  393. 

Ridley,  Bp.,  312,  313. 

Rimini,  Council  of,  143. 

Ripley,  George,  433. 

Ritschl,  A.,  13,  17,  21 ;  his  system,  524- 

527* 

Ritschlian  School,  the,  527-530. 

Robber  Synod,  the,  155. 

Rohr,  500. 

Roman  Catechism,  the,  332. 

Roman  Catholic  theology,  the  later, 
536  sq. 

Romaine,  William,  446. 

Romanes,  G.  J.,  his  advance  from  skep¬ 
ticism  to  Christian  Theism,  546. 

Rome,  see  of,  80,  120,  126,  128 ;  Synod 
at,  140,  210. 

Roscellin,  217. 

Rothe,  Richard,  his  system,  516-522. 

Rousseau,  493. 

Royer-Collard,  485. 

Rufinus,  132,  171. 

Ruysbroek,  264. 

Sabellianism,  99;  its  conception  of  the 
Trinity,  103,  137. 

Sabellius,  102,  103. 

Sacramentalism,  characteristic  of  the  Ox¬ 
ford  Movement,  454  sq.;  and  its  oppo¬ 
site  in  recent  times,  549. 

Sacraments,  the,  Irenseus  on,  87  ;  Origen 
on,  112;  the  Latin  view  of,  166;  influ¬ 
ence  of  the  heathen  mysteries  on,  167  ; 
Pseudo-Dionysius's  list  of,  ib. ;  the 
doctrine  of  the  Greek  Fathers  on,  ib. ; 
Augustine  on,  181,  183,  193 ;  Gregory 
I.  on,  198  ;  Hugo  of  St.  Victor  on,  254; 
Peter  Lombard  on,  ib. ;  Abelard  on, 
ib. ;  Aquinas  on  the  nature  and  need 
of,  ib. ;  on  the  number  and  function  of, 
255 ;  Aquinas  on  the  indelible  char¬ 
acter  of  three  of,  ib. ;  Duns  Scotus  on, 
ib. ;  Durandus  on,  ib. ;  Aquinas  on  the 
ex  opere  operato  effect  of,  ib. ;  the  Mys¬ 
tics  of  the  fourteenth  century  on,  264 ; 
Wyclif 's  view  of,  266 ;  Luther  on, 
271 ;  the  Augsburg  Confession  on,  280 ; 
Zwingli  on,  288,  289  ;  Calvin  on,  305  ; 
the  Ten  Articles  (1536)  on,  311;  the 
“Bishop’s  Book”  on,  ib. ;  the  Creed 
of  Trent  on,  330;  Hooker  on,  354;  the 
Quakers  on,  379;  the  Oxford  Declara¬ 
tion  on,  454;  the  Tracts  on,  456.  See, 
also,  the  several  Sacraments. 


Sardica,  Council  of,  141. 

Sarpi,  Father  Paul,  327,  350. 

Satan,  the  Gnostic  conception  of,  56,  57, 
59 ;  in  Manichaeism,  127 ;  Christ  a 
ransom  to,  Origen  on,  hi  ;  the  Greek 
Fathers  on,  162,  163;  Augustine  on, 
180;  Abelard  on,  223;  Bernard  of 
Clairvaux  on,  225  ;  Peter  Lombard  on, 
227. 

Saturninus,  his  system,  56. 

Saumur,  the  school  of,  342  sq. 

Savonarola,  265. 

Savonieres,  Synod  of,  207. 

Savoy  Confession,  the,  394. 

Schelling,  his  philosophy,  531. 

Schleiermacher,  Frederic,  his  influence 
on  New  England  Unitarianism,  432 sq.; 
on  Bushnell,  439;  his  personal  quali¬ 
ties,  502 ;  on  the  principle  and  scope 
of  dogmatic  theology,  ib.  sq. ;  on  the, 
attributes  of  God,  503  ;  on  sin,  504;  on 
the  person  and  work  of  Christ,  ib.  sq.; 
on  the  atonement,  507 ;  on  the  regen¬ 
erate  life,  508  ;  on  miracles,  ib. ;  on  the 
Second  Advent,  509 ;  on  the  Church, 
ib. ;  on  prayer,  ib. ;  his  eschatological 
views,  ib. ;  on  the  divine  government, 
510;  on  the  Trinity,  ib. ;  his  system 
characterized,  ib. ;  his  influence,  512. 

Scholasticism,  characteristics  and  maxim 
of,  212;  rival  tendencies  in,  213;  its 
principal  philosophical  problem,  ib. ; 
in  the  universities,  214 ;  method  of,  215  ; 
divisions  of  the  era  of,  216;  promi¬ 
nence  of  Mysticism  in,  230;  influence 
of  Scotus^on,  232;  influence  of  the 
Revival  of  Learning  on,  267 ;  in  later 
Protestant  theology,  347. 

Schoolmen,  the,  on  faith  and  knowledge, 
6,  212 ;  defects  in  their  method,  212 ; 
influence  of  Plato  and  Aristotle  among, 
213;  Nominalists  and  Realists,  ib. ; 
Dominicans  and  Franciscans,  214; 
Baur  on,  215  ;  subjects  and  methods  of 
their  speculation,  ib. ;  Mysticism  in, 
230 ;  their  apologetics,  235 ;  on  the 
attributes  of  God,  236;  on  creation, 
237;  on  the  origin  of  the  soul,  239  ;  on 
the  image  and  similitude  of  God,  240; 
on  Adam’s  sin,  240  sq. ;  on  the  im¬ 
maculate  conception,  244 ;  on  divine 
and  human  agency  in  conversion, 
248;  on  justification,  249,  250;  on 
explicit  and  implicit  faith,  249 ;  on 
papal  infallibility  and  prerogatives, 


580 


INDEX 


252;  on  the  nature,  number,  and  func¬ 
tion  of  Sacraments,  254^.;  on  bap¬ 
tism,  256;  on  confirmation,  ib. ;  on  the 
Lord’s  Supper,  on  penance,  258 ; 
on  the  five  abodes  of  the  invisible 
world,  259;  on  extreme  unction,  260; 
on  ordination,  261 ;  on  marriage,  zA; 
relation  of,  to  Augustine,  262.  See 
“  Scholasticism.” 

Schwane,  254. 

Schwenkfeld,  Caspar,  and  the  Schwenk- 
feldians,  317. 

Scotists,  the,  233,  et  passim. 

Scott,  Thomas,  393,  446. 

Scott,  Walter,  455. 

Scotus,  John  Duns,  his  characteristics 
and  his  influence  upon  Scholasticism, 
232 ;  on  the  proof  of  the  being  of  God, 
236;  on  the  extent  of  our  knowledge 
of  God,  ib. ;  on  immortality,  239;  on 
the  image  and  similitude  of  God,  240 ; 
on  the  fall,  241 ;  on  the  atonement, 
247 ;  on  divine  and  human  agency  in 
conversion,  249;  on  the  Sacraments, 
255 ;  on  the  Lord’s  Supper,  257 ;  on 
the  prerequisite  for  absolution,  260; 
his  point  of  view,  262. 

Scotus,  John  “  Erigena,”  his  career  and 
system,  203  sq.,  206. 

Scriptures,  the  Sacred,  source  of  doc¬ 
trine,  11 ;  attitude  of  the  Traditionalist, 
the  Mystic,  and  the  Rationalist  toward, 
11,  12;  their  authority,  the  basis  of 
Protestant  creeds,  18  ;  rise  of  a  scien¬ 
tific  scrutiny  of,  19  ;  the  method  of  the 
Fathers  in  the  interpretation  of,  76; 
Irenaeus  on,  84;  Origen  on,  105;  Ni- 
cene  and  post-Nicene  writers  on,  122; 
Augustine  on,  179;  Luther  on,  278; 
Calvin  on,  299;  the  reading  of,  in  the 
vernacular  restricted  by  the  Roman 
Catechism,  332 ;  Louis  Cappel  on,  343  ; 
the  Protestant  Scholastic  view  of,  347  ; 
the  Westminster  Confession  on,  359; 
Matthew  Arnold  on,  480  ;  other  recent 
views  on,  493,  500,  513,  517,  525,  529. 
See  “  Inspiration,”  “  Canon,”  “  Biblical 
Criticism.” 

Sect,  import  of  the  term,  9. 

Seleucia,  Council  of,  143. 

Semi-Pelagianism,  relation  of  John  Cas- 
sian  to,  196 ;  revival  of  the  contro¬ 
versy  on,  197  ;  opposed  by  Gottschalk, 
206 ;  conception  of  sin  in,  218  ;  its  doc¬ 
trine  of  divine  and  human  agency  set 


forth  by  Duns  Scotus,  249;  defended 
by  Melanchthon,  272;  held  by  the 
Franciscans,  328 ;  in  the  Creed  of 
Trent,  328  sq.;  espoused  by  the  Jesu¬ 
its,  332,  333- 

Semler,  20,  497. 

Sends,  in  the  Frankish  Church,  208. 

Seneca,  31. 

Sens,  Council  of,  223. 

Sentences,  the  books  of,  227,  228. 

Septuagint,  legend  respecting  it,  75,  122. 

Sergius  I.,  Pope,  201. 

Sergius,  Patriarch  of  Constantinople,  158. 

Servatus,  Lupus,  207. 

Servetus,  Michael,  his  system,  320. 

Severians,  156. 

Shaftesbury,  his  Characteristics ,  378. 

Shedd,  W.  G.  T.,  16,  21 ;  his  realistic 
hypothesis,  445. 

"  Shepherd,”  the,  of  Hermas,  34,  75. 

Sherlock,  Bishop,  370,  377. 

Sibylline  Oracles,  the,  27. 

Simeon,  Charles,  446. 

Simon  Magus,  50,  56. 

Sin,  Irenaeus  on,  85;  Tertullian  on,  93; 
Origen  on,  no,  in  ;  the  Greek  Fathers 
generally  on,  161,  164;  Augustine  on, 
185,  218;  Pelagius  on,  190;  Peter 
Lombard  on,  241 ;  Leibnitz  on,  383 ; 
the  New  England  theologians  on, 
411-418,  passim;  Channing  on,  429; 
Schleiermacher  on,  504 ;  Dorner  on, 
514;  J.  Muller  on,  515;  Lipsius  on, 
523;  Ritschl  on,  527;  Biedermann 
on,  534.  See  “  Original  sin.” 

Sirmian  creeds,  the,  142,  143. 

Six  Articles,  the,  312. 

Smalcald  Articles,  the,  273. 

Smith,  Henry  B.,  his  theology,  418. 

Smith,  John,  of  Cambridge,  368. 

Smyth,  Professor  E.  C.,  on  Jonathan 
Edwards’s  relation  to  Berkeley,  403. 

Smyth,  Rev.  John,  320. 

Socinianism,  its  origin  and  leading  rep¬ 
resentatives,  320,  321 ;  characteristics 
of  the  system,  322;  its  creed,  ib. ;  its 
attack  on  the  Anselmic  theory  of  the 
atonement,  323 ;  its  effect,  325 ;  in 
England,  370.  See,  also,  “  Unitarian- 
ism.” 

Socinus,  Faustus,  320,  321. 

Socinus,  Lselius,  321. 

Socrates,  gives  ethical  character  to  phi¬ 
losophy,  29. 

Socrates,  a  continuator  of  Eusebius,  131. 


INDEX 


58l 


Soissons,  Councils  of,  217,  223. 

Solemn  League  and  Covenant,  the, 
adopted,  359. 

Sophronius,  158. 

Soto,  Dominicus,  351. 

Soul,  the  doctrine  respecting,  in  Philo, 
28  ;  in  Plato,  30;  in  Tertullian,  90,  93  ; 
in  the  Greek  Fathers,  163;  in  Augus¬ 
tine,  187  ;  in  Aquinas,  239. 

South,  Robert,  370. 

Sozomen,  131. 

Spanish  Arabian  schools,  209. 

Spencer,  Herbert,  his  agnostic  theory, 
4,  487. 

Spinola,  380. 

Spinoza,  382,  432. 

Stanley,  A.  P.,  474  sq. 

Stapfer,  344. 

Stearns,  Lewis  F.,  548. 

Stiles,  Ezra,  423. 

Stillingfleet,  Edward,  365,  367,  371. 

Stoicism,  31,  90,  96. 

Storr,  500. 

Strauss,  D.  F.,  533. 

Strigel,  Victorin,  296. 

Stuart,  Moses,  420. 

St.  Victor,  the  School  of,  226. 

Subordinationism,  in  Tertullian,  91;  in 
Origen,  109;  in  Dionysius  of  Alexan¬ 
dria,  115;  in  Gregory  of  Nyssa,  144; 
eliminated  in  the  West,  146.  See 
“  Trinity.” 

Supralapsarianism.  See  "Arminianism,” 
“  Calvin,”  “  Will.” 

Suso,  Henry,  264,  265. 

Swedenborg,  Emanuel,  his  system,  493. 

Synesius,  Bishop  of  Ptolemsis,  126. 

Systems,  theological,  relaxing  of  adher¬ 
ence  to,  551. 

Tait,  Archbishop,  460. 

Tatian,  his  writings,  37;  his  conception 
of  Christianity  as  a  philosophy,  61 ;  on 
the  Logos,  6^26*. 

Tauler,  John,  '264,  269,  317. 

Taylor,  Jeremy,  364. 

Taylor,  Nathaniel  W.,  his  theology,  414. 

“  Teaching  of  the  Twelve  Apostles.”  See 
“  Didache.” 

Temple,  Bishop,  476. 

Ten  Articles  (of  1536),  the  tenets  and 
sources  of,  310. 

Tertullian,  materials  for  doctrinal  his¬ 
tory  in,  19 ;  his  training  and  personal 
qualities,  38 ;  on  the  philosophers,  ib., 


90 ;  his  writings,  39 ;  a  Montanist,  82 ; 
on  the  power  of  binding  and  loosing, 
ib. ;  on  tradition,  90;  on  the  soul,  ib.; 
on  the  proof  of  the  being  of  God,  ib.  ; 
on  the  Trinity,  91 ;  on  the  Logos, 
ib. ;  on  the  person  of  Christ,  92;  on  the 
atonement,  ib.;  legalism  in,  ib. ;  on 
human  freedom  and  sin,  93  ;  on  regen¬ 
eration,  ib. ;  on  the  millennium,  ib. ;  on 
the  Monarchians,  99. 

Theodore  I.,  Bishop  of  Rome,  158. 

Theodore,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury, 
208. 

Theodore  of  Mopsuestia,  122,  131,  151, 

154,  157.  See  “Antioch,  School  of.” 

Theodore  of  Tarsus,  203. 

Theodoret,  Bishop  of  Cyrus,  131,  153, 

155.  157- 

Theodosius  the  Great  establishes  the 
Nicene  orthodoxy,  145;  II.,  153,  154. 

Theodotus,  the  Currier,  his  humanitarian 
doctrine,  101. 

Theodotus,  the  Money  Changer,  101. 

Theognis  of  Nicaea,  139. 

Theology,  the  possibility  of,  4  sq.;  its 
relation  to  faith,  6 ;  its  relation  to  phi¬ 
losophy,  7 ;  reasons  for  the  science  of, 
8  ;  progressive  character  of,  ib. ;  incen¬ 
tives  to  the  development  of,  9  ;  Baur’s 
theory  of  the  development  of,  14  ;  New¬ 
man’s  theory  of  the  development  of, 
ib.;  influence  of  the  Renaissance  on, 
18  sq.;  authentic  sources  of,  23;  influ¬ 
ence  of  Greek  philosophy  on,  29  sq.; 
at  Alexandria,  39 ;  earliest  treatises  on, 
40 ;  in  the  Greek  Apologists,  61 ;  course 
of,  in  the  East  after  the  fourth  century, 
128  sq. ;  ruling  ideas  of  the  Greek 
Fathers,  161  sq. ;  mediaeval  compila¬ 
tions  in,  203 ;  the  Roman  Catholics 
restated  in  the  Creed  of  Trent,  326  sq.  ; 
as  affected  by  modern  philosophy,  381- 
393 ;  Schleiermacher  on  the  principle 
and  scope  of,  502 ;  recent  tendencies 
of,  546  sq.  See,  also,  “  Doctrine.” 

Theophilus,  Bishop  of  Antioch,  37,  64, 

75- 

Theophrastus,  101. 

Thirlwall,  Bishop,  460,  462. 

Thirty-nine  Articles,  the,  the  groundwork 
of,  31 1 ;  reduced  from  the  forty-two 
Articles,  313;  on  the  Lord's  Supper, 
ib.;  is  Article  XVII.  (on  predestina¬ 
tion)  Calvinistic  ?  314;  on  the  Church, 
315 ;  the  Westminster  Assembly’s  par- 


582 


INDEX 


tial  revision  of,  339;  Newman  on  (in 
Tract  XC.),  457- 

Thomas  a  Kempis,  264. 

Thomasius,  17,  21,  65,  524. 

Thomists,  the,  233]  et  passim. 

Thorndike,  Prebendary,  356. 

“  Three  Chapters,”  the,  157. 

Timothy,  the  Epistles  to,  traces  of  Gnos¬ 
ticism  in,  55. 

Tindal,  Matthew,  377. 

Toland,  John,  375,  376. 

Toledo,  Council  of,  147. 

Toplady,  Augustus,  393. 

Toucy,  Synod  of,  207. 

Tours,  the  school  at,  210. 

“  Tractarians,”  the,  455.  See  “  Oxford 
Movement.” 

Tradition,  how  viewed  by  the  early  Fa¬ 
thers,  76  sq.  ;  Tertullian  on,  90  ;  its  place 
in  the  Nicene  and  post-Nicene  writers, 
123  ;  its  authority  in  the  Middle  Ages, 
213 ;  in  the  Creed  of  Trent,  328 ;  in 
the  Oxford  School,  454 ;  vs.  Develop¬ 
ment,  549. 

Traditionalism,  11. 

Traducianism,  in  Tertullian,  93 ;  Augus¬ 
tine’s  attitude  toward,  187  sq. 

Traheran,  on  Cranmer’s  change  of  be¬ 
lief,  313. 

“Transcendental”  School  in  New  Eng¬ 
land,  the,  433. 

Transubstantiation,  the  doctrine  of  Pas- 
chasius  Radbert  on,  207 ;  Berengarius 
on,  210;  Lanfranc  on,  ib.;  modified 
by  Guitmund,  21 1 ;  first  use  of  the 
term,  ib.;  Anselm  on,  ib. ;  William  of 
Occam  on,  233 ;  the  term  authorita¬ 
tively  sanctioned,  257;  the  Schoolmen 
on,  ib. ;  rejected  by  Wyclif,  266 ;  Luther 
on,  271 ;  the  Six  Articles  on,  312 ;  the 
Creed  of  Trent  on,  330;  Bishop  An¬ 
drews  on,  356;  Tract  XC.  of  Newman 
on,  458.  See  “Lord’s  Supper.” 

Trent,  the  Council  of,  its  organization, 
326 ;  Papal  control  of,  327 ;  difficul¬ 
ties  confronting,  ib. ;  on  the  sources 
of  doctrine,  328;  on  the  Vulgate,  ib. ; 
on  the  test  of  orthodoxy,  ib. ;  on  origi¬ 
nal  sin,  ib. ;  on  justification  and  assur¬ 
ance,  329  ;  on  perseverance,  330 ;  on 
predestination,  ib. ;  on  penance,  ib. ; 
on  the  Sacraments,  ib. ;  its  service, 
33i- 

Trinitarian  controversy  in  New  England, 
418  sq. 


Trinity,  the  doctrine  of,  the  era  o  :on- 
troversy  upon,  17 ;  first  use  (  ‘.he 
term,  91 ;  Tertullian  on,  ib.;  Cl>  mt 
of  Alexandria  on,  95  ;  the  Monar  fiiar 
controversy  upon,  98  sq. ;  the  Sabellian 
view  of,  103;  Paul  of  Samosata  on, 
104;  Origen  on,  107  sq. ;  Novatian  on, 
113  ;  Dionysius  of  Alexandria  on,  114  ; 
Dionysius  of  Rome  on,  ib. ;  Methodiu 
on,  116;  the  younger  Nicaeans  on, 
143;  John  of  Damascus  on,  160; 
Augustine  on,  178;  Roscellin  on,  217; 
Abelard  on,  223 ;  Gilbert  of  Poictiers 
on,  226;  Aquinas  on,  237;  Calvin  on, 
307 ;  Michael  Servetus  on,  320 ;  th  ; 
Socinian  doctrine  of,  322;  Bishop 
Sherlock  on,  370;  controversy  in  New 
England  on,  418  sq. ;  Professor  Moses 
Stuart  on,  420;  Bushnell  on,  438-441 ; 
Stanley  on,  475;  Swedenborg  on,  494; 
Schleiermacher  on,  510;  C.  I.  Nitzsch 
on,  515;  Rothe  on,  517;  Hegel  on, 
532.  See  “Arianism,”  “Christ,  the 
person  of.” 

Tronchin,  Louis,  345. 

Trullan  Council,  the  First,  159 ;  the  Sec¬ 
ond,  200. 

Trypho,  Justin’s  dialogue  with,  27,  37 
67. 

Tubingen  School,  the,  14,  41,  51,  534. 
See  “  Baur,  F.  C.” 

Tulloch,  John,  on  the  Latitudinarians, 
368. 

Turretine,  Francis,  345,  346,  note. 

Turretine,  Alphonso,  345. 

Tyler,  Bennet,  416. 

Tyndall,  488. 

Tyre,  Synod  at,  140. 

Ultramontanism,  537,  539. 

Unitarianism,  rise  of,  320;  in  Poland, 
321 ;  in  New  England,  its  rise,  418  sq. ; 
Channing  on  the  various  types  of,  420 ; 
its  chief  representatives,  421 ;  confined 
chiefly  to  Eastern  New  England,  422; 
its  cultivation  of  Biblical  criticism  and 
belles  lettres,  423 ;  Theodore  Parker 
on,  424 ;  its  promotion  of  philan¬ 
thropy,  425  ;  its  theology  as  taught  by 
Channing,  427-432;  radical  develop¬ 
ment  in  the  intuitional  theory,  432; 
the  Transcendental  School,  433  ;  Par- 
kerism,  433  sq. ;  gradual  prevalence  of 
the  progressive  school  in,  436.  See, 

I  also,  “  Socinianism.” 


INDEX 


583 


Universalism,  in  America,  436.  See 
j>  1‘  Restorationism.” 

1  .cban  IV.,  258;  VIII.,  334. 
fsinus,  292. 

Iljssher,  Archbishop,  358,  359. 
Uytenbogaert,  338. 

Valentinus,  58. 

Vatican  Council,  the,  158,  540  sq. 
g  Venn,  Henry,  446. 

Vercelli,  Synod  of,  210. 

Victor,  Bishop  of  Rome,  38. 

Vigilantius,  172. 

Vincent  of  Lerins,  123,  196. 

Voetius,  349. 

3  Voltaire,  492. 
q  Vulgate,  the,  131,  328. 

Waldensians,  the,  263. 

Walter  of  St.  Victor,  227. 

Ware,  Henry  (Sr.),  420. 

Ware,  Henry  (Jr.),  421. 

Waterland,  Daniel,  371,  377. 

Watts,  Isaac,  393. 

Wegscheider,  500. 

Weissman,  348. 

Wesel,  John,  265,  285. 

Wesley,  John,  his  theology,  390  sq.,  452. 
Wesleyanism,  342. 

Wessel,  John,  265. 

Westminster  Assembly,  358 ;  Confession, 
274,  359  sq. 

Westphal,  Joachim,  292. 

Whately,  Richard,  his  theology,  450. 
Whichcote,  Benjamin,  366,  367. 

Whiston,  William,  376. 

White,  Edward,  479. 

Whitefield,  George,  390,  391,  395,  446. 
Wilberforce,  Bishop,  446. 

Will,  the,  the  Stoics  on,  31 ;  Justin  Mar¬ 
tyr  on,  66  ;  Tertullian  on,  93  ;  Clement 
of  Alexandria  on,  96;  Origen  on,  107, 
no;  the  Antiochian  School  on,  151 ; 
the  Greek  Fathers  on,  164;  Augustine 
on,  184,  191 ;  Pelagius  on,  184;  Aqui¬ 


nas  on,  238  ;  Luther  on,  284,  292;  the 
Augsburg  Confession  on,  293;  Me- 
lanchthon’s  change  of  view  on,  ib. ;  the 
Philippists  on,  295;  the  Form  of  Con¬ 
cord  on,  296;  S.  Clarke  on,  376; 
Spinoza  on,  383;  Locke  on,  397  sq.; 
Edwards  on,  397  sq.  ;  Taylor  on,  4x5  ; 
Professor  Park  on,  417 ;  Rothe  on, 
518.  See,  also,  “  Determinism.” 

William  of  Occam,  233,  249-257,  262. 

William  of  Champeaux,  214,  226. 

Williams,  Isaac,  457. 

Williams,  Rowland,  476. 

Wilson,  Henry  B.,  476. 

Winchester,  Elhanan,  437. 

Wisdom  of  Solomon,  the,  27. 

Wittenberg  Concord,  the,  290. 

Wolzogenius,  321. 

Woods,  Leonard,  416. 

Woolston,  Thomas,  377. 

Worcester,  Noah,  420. 

Wordsworth,  William,  455. 

Wyclif,  John,  his  theology,  265  sq. 

Zahn,  on  the  date  of  the  Didache  and 
“  Shepherd,”  35  ;  on  the  Apostle’s 
Creed,  71,  100,  141. 

Zeno,  the  philosopher,  31. 

Zeno,  the  emperor,  156. 

Zephyrinus,  Bishop  of  Rome,  102,  103. 

Zinzendorf,  495. 

Zosimus,  Bishop  of  Rome,  194,  195. 

Zwingli,  his  intellectual  qualities  and 
religious  experience,  285 ;  compared 
with  Luther,  ib.,  286;  the  starting- 
point  of  his  theology,  286 ;  a  social 
reformer,  ib.;  his  disputations  and 
articles  of  belief,  ib. ;  his  theological 
works,  287 ;  on  the  Canon,  ib. ;  on 
predestination,  ib. ;  on  original  sin, 
288 ;  his  controversy  with  Luther  on 
the  Lord’s  Supper,  ib.  sq.;  efforts  at 
reconciliation,  289  sq. ;  relation  of 
Calvin  to,  298-309,  passim. 

Zwinglians,  272. 


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